he used to produce monty python specials. oh, and he hates mimes. lorne hates mimes. the bulls up a chair and give him this poem with 1100 jokes in it. he opens it. he reads the first joke. egos, u -- he goes, uh-huh, good. then he closes the book. i wrote 1100 jobs over two days, and he reads one joke. i wrote a jokes and the post office was about to issue a stamp commemorating prostitution in the united states. 10 cents, but if you want to lick it, it is a quarter. [laughter] he said, good. good. he said, tell me, how much money do you need to live on? i said, well, i am making $2.75 an hour at the deli. match it. [laughter] he said, well, tell me a little bit more about yourself. acted it to mean before he committed this kind of cash, he wanted to see what he was buying. i said, with the allen is my idol. i love monty python. but if there is one mime on the show, i am out of here, and he gave me a job. [laughter] that was my great. ultimately, hear i am, having written a novel with my childhood hero dave barry. [applause] >> dave barry and alan zweibel, they're not

and monty python is on -- >> that's a good nickname.>> bill: monty python has got the camera this morning. siprion has the day off -- >> siprion is on his way -- >> bill: oh, that's right. he had that important assignment before he got here this morning. >> all i can tell you is i know siprion was at the baseball game last night. and when i last saw him there were two open bottles of champagne -- >> bill: oh, not. well there was a lot to celebrate. >> siprion was clearly in a celebrating mood. >> bill: all right. we'll get the full story when he shows up. sad news yesterday, the passing of a guy who really made a mark. i can't believe roger ebert, he is failment -- a film critic but he changed the way people look at movies and of course mr. siskel -- gene siskel yeah. >> bill: but it was ebert who was the star. >> he was clearly the star. >> bill: and president obama put out a statement about -- i mean when does that happen for a film critic? >> yeah. yeah. >> bill: like never before. and he could really make or break a movie. the two o

>> i grew up with monty python and all the craziness. it is really easy to hide. you don't have to go face-to- face. these are simpler times and you had to embrace the confrontation. this is kind of juicy for people to see the simpler times where we are communicating with each other. more: you have done reading about suffrage that i did in preparation for this conversation. >> a true american pioneer in every sense of the word. chicago, i would go to marshall field's. you get a sense of what he created. he transformed the place, came up with the phrase that the customer is always right. camed not have sales, he up with bargain-basement. he thought that if we had these enormous windows and we treat it like a play and we depict a scene, people will come and and it was his theater. he basically took that and ran with it when he started a 100 years ago. it was voted the best department store in the world. i think he did something right. i don't want to get ahead of myself and telegraph what is going to happen. the but he had a beautiful and prolific and tragic life, a

to take the edge off, the captain and i exchanged lines from monty python and "the holy grail," one ofus began, you're in great peril. i don't think i was. yes, you were, you were in the terrible peril. look, let me go back and face the peril. oh, no, it's too perilous. we were like-minded in how to approach the embattled city. i would spend the night protecting my friend's smoldering wreckage. i went home. i attended all the memorials. early on the night of a holy day, and i can hear the broadcast from three nearby mosques, a voice spread out through an extended exhale of language that i cannot interpret but feel that i may understand. that's a gray of incomplete darkness, blind to the world as we see it but somehow not colliding with it. both of us recognizing what is solid and what is not. it is, then, the same world to men and to bats. they hunt insects that hunt us and hunt each other. everything is similar. everyone is hunting. i had moved through the dark defining the grainny green glow of night vision goggles. i'd been out all day patrolling and sweating and thinking that i wou

when you mentioned that is i had a little laps in my respectful religious demeanor and watched "monty pythons life of brian." you haven't seen that? you ever want a story about an unwilling savior that's it. let me get rid of the questions then we'll go to the graphic. >> i was going to say from the things you've said john, we talked a lot about spirituality, but i think spirituality follows being spiritual. and i have met a lot of people who do not consider themselves religious, they may be atheist and yet they are spiritual people and it seems to me that being spiritual is an element of our humanity. and so that's why i think that precedes spirituality. >> i feel we're moving into the personal realm which is you know fine me because we're almost through the semester. but to step out of my more detached realm, i absolutely agree with you. i have always thought, some what simplistically, that we have a physical dimension, and a intellectual dimension, and a spiritual dimension and all three need to be exercised in order to bring out the best and once one is bringing out the best then you see

how many of you are familiar with monty python's flying circus? so imagine you meet a character back there in 2010 and the person offers you a bat. and you say here is the crystal ball. if you look at the crystal ball, you will see the future, but there is one single condition coming with this. the future will be accurate, but you need to go to the c-span and tell the future to the world. so, of course, you take the bat, you look at the crystal balker next thing you know you're sitting in a studio with a lovely host, and this is what you say before the end of the 2011, mubarak of egypt and ben ali of tunisia would be down and prosecuted. sal lay of yemen would be out of power, assad would be seriously challenged, osama bin laden would be dead together with gadhafi. and number one on the hague criminal list will be hecht. so 2011 was really the worst year for bad guys ever. and before jumping into the year of big hangover which is 2012, we need to look at this as a year where the people power or the nonviolent struggle really stepped out from the c

to take the edge off, the captain and i exchanged lines from monty python and "the holy grail," one ofs began, you're in great peril. i don't think i was. yes, you were, you were in the terrible peril. look, let me go back and face the peril. oh, no, it's too perilous. we were like-minded in how to approach the embattled city. i would spend the night protecting my friend's smoldering wreckage. i went home. i attended all the memorials. early on the night of a holy day, and i can hear the broadcast from three nearby mosques, a voice spread out through an extended exhale of language that i cannot interpret but feel that i may understand. that's a gray of incomplete darkness, blind to the world as we see it but somehow not colliding with it. both of us recognizing what is solid and what is not. it is, then, the same world to men and to bats. they hunt insects that hunt us and hunt each other. everything is similar. everyone is hunting. i had moved through the dark defining the grainny green glow of night vision goggles. i'd been out all day patrolling and sweating and thinking that i woul