the journalist stephen brown called it a pharmacological hand grenade.hen it hits your brain, it is doing so many things. often all at once. it is a stimulant in various ways. it stimulates serotonin production. it boosts endorphins. the feeling of elation. it is raising mood. it is relaxing you. it makes you feel good about people around you. the depressant part of it that is targeting the prefrontal cortex along with other systems of your brain that is a major one i focus on. it is turning it down a few notches. one way to look at it is it is taking away the playground monitor a vacation so kids can play on their own. it is decreasing inhibitions for good and bad. it is making you feel good about yourself and the people around you. once you get it to higher blood alcohol contents, the depressant effects start to swap out the other effects and that's when you get people falling asleep, passing out. it really depends on the dosage, how quickly you are drinking, whether you have food in your stomach or not, it is variable. it is a hodgepodge of different

. >> stephen: a zebra print or leopard? >> brownobama's 60th birthday party. >> oh. >> stephen: and i'm going to wear a nice zennia tan suit, dark shirt and zebra print shoes. i got uninvited. ( laughter ) the head reasonline is i got uninvited to obama's party which is fine because if i had come in your shoes, no one would have made apension to obama. but i did take a photo and send it to you because i did want to wear them. this is what i was doing the niht i should have been at that party. this is me in the shoes. >> oh, i love that you like my shoes! yay! ( cheers and applause ) i love it! ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: they're goodlookin'! where do i wear them? do you have a recommendation? >> wear them every day all day. it doesn't have to be a special occasion. wear whatever you want whenever you want to wear them. > stephen: i'm not as special as you are. i need special occasions. everywhere you go ends up feeling a little bit special. now, you've written a new memoir. >> yes. >> stephen: all right. i wrote a whole book

but i have been bit several times by a brown recluse spider. >> stephen: several times? se spider, spiders. i don't like spiders. >> stephen: wow, wow. may i ask where you were bitten? ( laughter ) >> sphen: apples or oranges? >> apples. >> stephen: that's exactly right. ( laughter ) you can put peanut butter on an apple. >> and i love that. >> stephen: have you ever asked someone for their autograph? >> yes. uh, i was with my son watching the new york yankees in 1998, and... ( applause ) that's right! >> stephen: one yankee fan, one. >> what's that about! and we had-- i mean, the '98 yanks. come on! we had a baseball that the whole team signed. he has a baseball the whole team signed. >> stephen: wow, that's nice. ( applause ) that tends to be the answer. it tends to be a sports figure. what do you think happens when we die, bruce? >> okay, individual consciousness. adios. but our souls and our spirits i think grow and live on with the people that we've loved and who have loved us and with people we've had impact on, with our work or with our-- in our daily experience. s

our own jeffery brown interviewed stephen sondheim in 2010, and talked to him about how he crafts hisve often said, if you think of a lyric as a little one-act play, then each line is a scene, and a quatrain becomes an entire act. >> brown: each line is a scene. >> each line is a scene. and you have got seven words in a line. so, we have got somewhere-- so, let's say each word is a speech. well, if you're writing a play, and something's wrong with a speech, you cut or change the speech, the same way you have got to do it, word by word. it is as focused as that. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ "sundays in the park with george" ♪ >> brown: and the greatest focus is on words that rhyme. sondheim writes lying down, better for a quick nap when things aren't going well, he says. he uses an old rhyming dictionary and a 1946 edition of "roget's thesaurus." >> a rhyme draws the ear's attention to the word. so, you don't make the least important word in the line the rhyme word. so, you have to-- and also, a rhyme can take something that is not too strong and make it much stronger. if you tell a joke in rhyme, it's twi

gone on in this country that has led to sort of the limiting of where black and brown people can buy homes and live. stephen lester, is a toxicologist with nearly 40 years of experience helping people in contaminated communities find answers. it's probably no coincidence that many of these communities, many of these cancer clusters that we see, many of the industrial clusters that exist in this country today happened to be around. and in the midst of communities of color, we tracked on some of the men who used to work in the chris or facility at that real yard during the 1960 seventy's and eighty's. how many of you have health problems that you think were caused by korea? so i had it took a tumor. yeah, long lung cancer. i'll find out on the 17 of this month where i have a prostrate cancer. my. so what was it like working there? terrible smell, smell, or when you get in is when we go bag along with chris. oh, they're strong. they would burn your skin, you know, in the summer time you know. yeah, we'll burn on it. your skin, it would mix it, it would make, with the water dripping warm, it would mixing withou

stephen: we'll make this quick. first of all, i like the sweaterch the progression of clor across your chest is like the turning of the fall leaves. gold into orange and brown and winter. i like it. >> jon: embody the spirit of the season, baby. >> stephen: second, one of the things i love about the show that we do here is we run the gamut. it's a variety show and that goes to our guests as well. tonight we have world treasure david byrne is going to be here tonight. ( cheers and applause ) i was going to say american treasure. >> jon: yes. >> stephen: and not only that, he is interviewing and performing with the cast of "american utopia" ( cheers and applause ) and a fascinating woman in her own right, huma abedin, is going to be here tonight. who i know primarily -- i know primarily from her work with her former husband and hillary clinton, and this is the first time she's ever done late night, and she's got a new book and i cannot wait to find out about the real woman behind all the stories. stick around for that. ( cheers and applause ) folks, if you know me, you know i love love. but kids today love love a little differently than they did when i was gr

stephen: thank you, horsey. the first dingus getting the book thrown at him is florida man and member of seal-team fanny pack, jeremy brown before the riot began, brown was making plans and trying to recruit folks to join him. so he posted online, "we have a r.v. and van going! plenty of gun ports left to fill. we can pick you up." well, if what he wants is to be squeezed into a tiny box with other criminals, he's about to get his wish. next up on the parade of idiots, texas realtor and broken woman next to a broken window, jenna ryan. you may remember, ryan stormedly the capitol on january 6, but didn't think she'd get punished. in fact, in march, she tweeted, "definitely not going to jail. sorry, i have blonde hair, white skin, a great job, a great future, and i'm not going to jail." ( booing ) and you know what i'm saying next. ( laughter ) everybody knows what i'm saying next. and yet, it's still so fun. because jenna ryan, the woman who said she's not going to jail, was just sentenced to two months in jail. ( cheers and applause ) oh... oh... ( applause ) oh, the irony... bars she's going to be locked behind. of cour