Judd: Does that get worse as you get older?
Albert: It probably gets better as you get closer to the end. It would be funny to think, Oh, I have terminal cancer, but I’m worried about the cards.
Judd: I’ve been done with This Is 40 since the end of May, and it comes out at Christmas. It’s a seven-month gap, which is like telling a joke and waiting seven months to see if people laugh. It’s torture.
Albert: There’s no real immediacy in movies. Even in comedy albums, the irony is, if I didn’t bring a comedy album to a friend’s and sit down and listen to it with them, I never heard my comedy albums played. I’ve never heard reactions to them.
Judd: That’s what’s interesting about Twitter. I get tweets every night where someone says, “I’m watching Freaks and Geeks right now.” It’s a great way to connect with people who are watching your work at that very moment. Do you have that experience?
Albert: Yeah, but Twitter is the devil’s playground.
Judd: It sucked you in. You’re addicted now.
Albert: I don’t know if I’m addicted. It’s a horrible waste of time for the writer of it, the reader of it. We will lose the war to China because of Twitter.
Judd: So why are you still doing it?
Albert: Well, because I always liked the ability to comment on a good story of the day. And it’s the easiest thing when you read the morning newspapers and then you go: “Look at this—they’re bombing Europe.” And it’s amazing, whenever you do anything political, I’m sure you know.
Judd: The vitriol.
Albert: “I hope you die!” It’s just so funny to me.
Judd: If someone says, “I hope you die,” and I tweet back at them—
Albert: They say, “No, I love you.”
Judd: Yeah. Every time.
Albert: Every time. I know. I love that. And they are so shocked. I had a guy that said, “Go drive your car into the ocean and never come up, you vile piece of shit.” And I said, “All of that from that comment?” And the guy said, “Oh, my God, I didn’t know you’d answer back. I love Modern Romance!”
Judd: So you’re not currently writing a movie? Do you have notebooks? Do you have ideas?
Albert: I have tons of ideas. One of the reasons I didn’t go into it again was I am enjoying acting and there were so many movies I turned down as an actor because I was making my own movies. Every time I see Boogie Nights—you know, I got offered the part that Burt Reynolds got. And I remember going into a screening room and seeing Paul Thomas Anderson. No one knew him yet, and I watched Hard Eight, and I thought, Oh, this is good—this is someone you would like to take a chance with. But I was just getting the money to make The Muse, and if you’re writing and directing and starring in a movie, you can’t stop.
Judd: You said you were friends with Harry Nilsson?
Albert: I was. He was one of these comedy-freak guys. He would come and see my shows and he was very sweet and a massive drinker. I didn’t drink and I wound up being the driver. And then he introduced me to John Lennon, because they were best friends. I spent a lot of time with Harry Nilsson and John Lennon during those May Pang years, when he was out here. Those guys would get rowdy, but John Lennon was certainly a fun person. And John Lennon, again, was a frustrated comedian. All these guys—comedy, to them, was the holy grail.
Judd: So three single guys running around.
Albert: Harry wasn’t even single. He was married. His wife was very forgiving with him leaving and coming back the next month. Look, sometimes it was too much. He was friends with Keith Moon. The Who were staying in Century City, and Harry said, “Come over. Keith is here—we’re having a thing.” Now, listen to this. I had just done a Mike Douglas in the afternoon and flew back from Philadelphia. And I come walking down the hall, and the housekeeper says, “Oh, you were on Mike Douglas—you were wonderful.” “Thank you so much.” I go in the room, and in about twenty minutes Keith Moon threw the television out the window. It was sixteen stories up. And now the room is destroyed, and I’m going: I was recognized—I got to get out of here! How can I get out of the Century Plaza without being seen? Because I know in court she’s going to go, “The guy on The Mike Douglas Show!” You know? And I’m sitting there with Keith trying to be a Jewish mother: “Don’t throw the TV. If you want to get your frustration out, go run around the block, because the TVs, they don’t want them thrown out the window.”
Judd: So how old are you when you’re hanging out with John Lennon? Are you, like, twenty-three?
Albert: Twenty-five.
Judd: And did you grow up so much around show business that it didn’t blow your mind?
Albert: It’s a great question, because nothing blew my mind in show business, and he was the only person—the first time I met him, Harry said, “Get in that car there,” and I got in the backseat, and there was John Lennon, and the one thing I prided myself on in my comedy, you know, I’m not a person that was ever on. I was funny. I knew when to stop. I wasn’t that manic on, and I was on with him, and I didn’t know how to get out of it. I didn’t know what to do. And he said—that still remains the greatest thing to me—he leaned over and said, “I’ve known you for a thousand years.” And I just never felt bad again.
Judd: That’s right in the post-Beatles moment.
Albert: He was going through a lot. He was separated from Yoko, but I remember my album, Comedy Minus One, had just come out and was in Tower Records. So he and Harry and I went in. He bought them all. He bought three boxes of them. Then he drove down Sunset and hurled them out like Frisbees. And again I’m going, “Don’t do that. You’ll get a littering fine.” Boom. He’s just throwing them out on the street. So it’s good and bad. I mean, it helped my Billboard number, but now they are all over Sunset.
Judd: Was that inspiring creatively?
Albert: It was interesting to know what they think of comedy. They love comedy so much. It’s a language they don’t speak as eloquently. As much as you listen to the Beatles and say, “How do you write that song?” they’re going, “How did you say that? Where did that come from?”
Judd: Were you doing stand-up in those years?
Albert: I started on television. I had five years of network television before I ever got up on a stage. The first thing I ever did was in 1967. This guy Bill Keene had a little talk show at noon, and Gary Owens took over for a week. He knew about this dummy bit I used to do, this ventriloquist thing, and I was on Keene at Noon. From that I got an agent and three Steve Allen shows in 1968. I only had one bit. I did that and then I made up two other bits.
Judd: Did you have to show them before?
Albert: No. No. It was a time when people trusted you. They said, “What are you going to do?” “I’m going to do this—it will be four minutes.” Almost nobody laughed, but Steve Allen laughed so hard. And that was the laugh you needed. From that, in ’69, I was offered a spot as a regular on a Dean Martin show. Then, from ’70 to ’73, I must have done eighty variety shows. There were so many. Glen Campbell. Helen Reddy. The Everly Brothers. Johnny Cash. Hollywood Palace. After all of these shows, I did Merv—I did Merv Griffin’s CBS show fourteen times. And then, after all these years, I got a call from Neil Diamond. His manager said, “Would Albert want to open for Neil?” And I had never done that.