GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

GLENN: Alright, you sick twisted freak. Welcome to it. The third most listened to show in all of America from Radio City in Midtown Manhattan. We go to Jeff Foxworthy. Hello, sir, are you how?

FOXWORTHY: I'm great, Glenn, how are you?

GLENN: I'm great. Where are you?

FOXWORTHY: I'm in Atlanta.

GLENN: You think I think you live in LA?

FOXWORTHY: I didn't blend in real well.

GLENN: I bet you didn't. I bet you didn't. Jeff Foxworthy is, of course, a comedian, TV star, got a new book out. I mean, you've got it all. But you know what, Jeff, you and I have talked about this before and I want to go down this road for just a second. I find you amazing because most people don't know, at least on the coasts, how unbelievably successful you are. You are the most successful standup comedian I believe in the history of standup comedians. I haven't gone back to King Arthur's court, but I'm pretty sure. And yet, most people don't know that. They would say that it's, you know, one of these other comedians that you, you know, like Seinfeld or whatever. But you're under the radar because the people in New York and Los Angeles don't get you.

Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck Dictionary III by Jeff Foxworthy

FOXWORTHY: Well, you know, as a comic, you had to make a choice real early on, whether you were going to go to New York or LA and sit there and hope to get on stage, you know, a couple of times a week and do six or seven minutes, and Jay Leno told me early on. He said, the way you get good at something is to do it every day. And I just decided, you know what, I'm going to go travel this country. The first eight years I did standup, I did over 500 shows a year and went to all 50 states and so that's probably why early on the people in New York and LA were like, who is this? Never heard of this. But, you know, I was out there with to me what is the backbone of the country is the rural country.

GLENN: You know, I have a theory. Most people are afraid to talk about their weaknesses. Most people are afraid to talk about what they think is the worst part of them or whatever. I'm an alcoholic and when I address that and then I just, you know, owned it: I'm a recovering alcoholic, there you go, now it's out in the open. Your weaknesses become your strength and not to say that your accent is a weakness, but in some ways to mainstream media, they had to perceive this as a weakness and say, you know, you'd be a success if you just lost the accent and didn't do the redneck stuff and yet you embraced it and that's what made you a success.

FOXWORTHY: You know what, that's the first advice I got in this business. I remember the first time I worked in New York. I had guys coming up going, yo, Jeff, I don't want to hurt your feelings, right, but you got to take some voice lessons and lose this stupid accent you got. I was like, wait a minute. Where I come from, you have one. But Glenn, this is -- my thought was, you know what? At least a quarter of the country talks like I do. Why do I have to be something fake? Why can't -- this is who I am. And thank God it worked.

GLENN: You think that's why, you think that's why you connected? Did you connect because nobody was doing this? Or did you connect because you're just real? That's who you are?

FOXWORTHY: It's funny. It's like if somebody comes up to me in the grocery or Home Depot store, nobody says, excuse me, Mr. Foxworthy. People are like, hey, Jeff, let me tell you what my mother did. And so -- and even with my comedy, I remember early on, you know, looking at billboards and watching commercials and thinking, what am I going to talk about? What am I going to talk about? And I decided real early, you know what, if my wife says it, if I think it, if my kids do it, surely we're not the only ones. And so I just kind of trusted to talk about my life and my family. I had no idea there were that many other people out there like us, but, you know, it just worked.

GLENN: Seriously what are you pulling down a year?

FOXWORTHY: Life's good. We've got corrugated metal all around the bottom of the trailer now.

GLENN: Wow, that's great. Do you think you would have made -- do you think you would have made more money or been more successful had you changed anything, or do you think you made it because the redneck thing, because you were alone, or you were?

FOXWORTHY: You know what? I mean, there -- I probably, through the years -- as a comic I probably did as well as I'm capable of doing because I'm not the world's smartest guy. In the entertainment business I'm sure through the years I could have made more money because when I left LA, I mean, there were people pitching me to talk shows and movies, and this is like I tell my kids all the time. I'm like, you know, in life there's not a practice left. You get one time around. And I just thought, I got one shot. Not only if this thing that I do for a living that I love doing, I've got one shot at being a dad. I got one shot at being a dad, at being a husband, at being a son. And so I kind of said no to a lot of things that probably would have made me more money. I turned down a movie this past summer because it was nine weeks in Vancouver, and my oldest daughter is 15 and I said, you know what, I got two more summers with her; I've not giving one away to go make a silly movie.

GLENN: So I think I know the answer then to the next question because the next question is, more importantly, do you think you would have been happier any other way? Are you -- because I don't believe money buys happiness by any stretch of the imagination.

FOXWORTHY: It doesn't, you know, and that's what I saw in LA was some of the most famous, some of the most financially successful people in the world and they were miserable and so it was almost like God was like, all right, see, that ain't it, that ain't it right there. And so it enabled me to think, all right, if that's not it, then what is. And to me --

GLENN: So what is?

FOXWORTHY: Life's about relationships, with your family, with you are friends, you know, and so I -- no way would I have been happier.

GLENN: You know, we were talking about, you lived out in Hollywood. I think they are the most miserable people on the planet but, you know, I could be wrong. They are talking about this movie that came out, the Robert Redford movie, and they're not sure if it bombed this weekend because of the antiwar message or because of Tom Cruise' scientology. Any --

FOXWORTHY: Maybe it's the combo.

GLENN: You think maybe? I think aliens, I think L. Ron Hubbard aliens could have appeared halfway through that movie and it couldn't have done worse. Maybe it's just me.

FOXWORTHY: Well, because it's just -- you know what? People know real. People know when you are trying to scam them. People know when you are a nut. That's one of the promises in this country is the nuts don't know they're nuts. If they knew we were nuts and would put that disclaimer out front, it would be easier Forrest of us.

GLENN: But aren't you amazed that most of America -- and maybe it goes to we get so disconnected because the people who are really, the people in the center of the country are the ones that are always ignored by the media centers but they are the ones who, when you go out in the center of the country, they are always the ones pointing going, this isn't this hard to fix. You know? They get it. But nobody seems to pay attention to them.

FOXWORTHY: They don't pay attention to them because, you know, most of the media obviously is controlled, you know, in LA and New York. But it's -- you know, I said that and got 95% of the people loved it. But at the end of the country music awards it was like these people in the middle of the country, you know, you can call them whatever you want but they're the backbone of the country. They get up and go to work, they get up and go to church and they get up and go to war when you need them to.

GLENN: Jeff Foxworthy,. The name of the book is Learning to Talk More Gooder Fastly. It's the redneck --

FOXWORTHY: It's the volume of the redneck dictionary because two wasn't enough, Glenn.

GLENN: Yeah, I know. So Learning to Talk More Gooder Fastly. You work hard, a long time on that one?

FOXWORTHY: Well, what -- here's the best part was the first two dictionaries went to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, which makes me think whoever thought up that list is spinning in his grave right now.

GLENN: Oh, I have to tell you, my daughter said one time -- she was reading a book and she said, you know, Dad, he's a -- I said, oh, please, give me a break. She said, Dad, he's a New York Times Best Seller. And I said, I'm a New York Times best selling author.

FOXWORTHY: What does that mean?

GLENN: I know. She looked at me with such -- I destroyed her whole life. She was all of a sudden looking, not -- she didn't lose any more respect for me. She couldn't. She lost respect for the New York Times. She's like, oh, that paper is worthless. I've got to tell her --

FOXWORTHY: The New York Post who in 1995 voted me the worst actor on television and my wife used to say, well, do you want to be the worst or the next to the worst? And I said, worst is good.

GLENN: I mean, yeah, let's go for it. If you are going to go for it, own it, baby, own it. All right, Jeff Foxworthy, Redneck Dictionary 3. Thanks, appreciate it. 

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