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Glenn Beck

Honest Questions with Jeff Foxworthy

Aired March 21, 2008 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Jeff Foxworthy is a stand-up comic who found acclaim and fame in embracing his redneck roots.

JEFF FOXWORTHY, COMEDIAN: Sophisticated people have retirement plans. Rednecks play the lottery.

BECK: This one-time IBM engineer went from a $20-a-month stand-up comic to the head of the blue collar comedy empire, making him one of America`s richest entertainers.

FOXWORTHY: I think my current favorite southern word is sensuous. Told my old lady "since you was" up, get me a beer.

BECK: But despite his amazing career, Foxworthy says his faith and family are his true successes.

Funny and frank, Jeff Foxworthy speaks to the heart of what makes America great. He joins me now for a full hour of honest questions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: All right. I don`t need to introduce this guy. It`s Jeff Foxworthy.

But Jeff -- first of all, welcome.

FOXWORTHY: Thank you. Nice to be here.

BECK: All right. I just have to go over this. Think it`s fantastic. You`ve been married for 23 years.

FOXWORTHY: Twenty-three years.

BECK: Congratulations on that.

FOXWORTHY: Thank you.

BECK: You are the largest selling comedy recording artist in history.

FOXWORTHY: That always seems weird. It seems like it ought to be Cosby. I mean, it`s amazing.

BECK: Yes. You host a country music radio show for Clear Channel. You`re a multiple Grammy award nominee, which I have to shake your hand on that one. How did you get the people in Hollywood to even listen?

FOXWORTHY: They won`t give me the award. They just keep nominating me.

BECK: OK, OK.

FOXWORTHY: They won`t give me the award.

BECK: Jeff Foxworthy. I don`t know that.

You host a TV show, "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" Star of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Released a group of books called "The Redneck Dictionary." You have your own life of -- own line of beef jerky and barbecue sauce.

FOXWORTHY: Spare time, that`s not a good thing.

BECK: Do you ever just go, "God bless America, man"?

FOXWORTHY: Yes, with your face on it. Nothing in life prepares to walk in the pantry and go, "Oh my gosh. I`m on a ..."

BECK: Right. So you`ve got, like, a billion books. I mean, now, do you have to -- do you not have enough money? Is that what it is? Would you like a loan or something? Now you`re...

FOXWORTHY: This is the most fun thing I`ve ever done.

BECK: Really?

FOXWORTHY: I`ve wanted to do this for a long -- I always made up, like, silly little songs and rhyming things with my kids. And then when I started doing "Fifth Grader," all of a sudden I had an audience that never knew who I was before. You`d go out and they`re like you`re the guy.

BECK: Yes, yes, yes.

FOXWORTHY: And so my kids and a couple of friends were like, do it. Now`s the time to do it. And I sat down and I thought, "Well, this will be easy. I`ve done 25 books. This is for kids. I`ll knock this out in a day or two." Like Stephen King. You know, Stephen King must be, "There`s a book. There`s a book."

And it was the hardest thing I`ve ever written. I mean, after three days I`m like no wonder Dr. Seuss was such a big deal. This is hard, because your vocabulary shrinks. I mean, you have people that are learning to read. And it has to rhyme, and there`s a flow. And you wanted it -- you know, I wanted it to be about kids.

It`s like with stand-up, I just always trusted -- I always trust it. If I thought it, if my wife said it, if my kids did it, surely we weren`t the only ones.

BECK: Right.

FOXWORTHY: And what does every kid -- every kid likes to play. Every kid likes to pretend. And every kid has goofy relatives. You know?

BECK: I have to tell you. I`ve got to be honest with you. I could lie to you. I read it and it`s fabulous, or to tell you the truth. Last night I brought it home, and my son always picks which one is going to read and take him to bed. And so last night it was my wife, and so she read it upstairs. She read it. And she said, love it. He loved it. Read it cover to cover. Just loved it. It was great.

FOXWORTHY: A lot of them are long. You know, it`s like make it silly. Make it fun.

BECK: I`m lying to you. I don`t have any kids. But it worked. Didn`t it?

FOXWORTHY: It was beautiful.

BECK: Tuned out right before...

FOXWORTHY: I was almost about to cry.

BECK: You`re like, "I`m going to buy that book."

FOXWORTHY: That`s beautiful.

BECK: Did you write -- did you write this at all because you`re -- I mean, did you write it at all -- I hate to make it sound so grandiose. Is it just a book, or did you write it because you`re concerned about, like, the garbage that`s being shoveled our kids` way?

FOXWORTHY: You know, to me, it was like, childhood should be an awesome time in your life t. It`s the time of the least responsibility. And probably your greatest imagination.

And there is so much garbage now.

BECK: Do you read to your -- how old are your kids?

FOXWORTHY: My girls are 14 and 16 now. But I had read to them every night. Every night. Yes, I`m not really smart right now. I`m not even allowed to...

BECK: I have a 20-year-old daughter and a 16 and then I`ve got a 2- year-old daughter, as well. God bless you.

FOXWORTHY: Yes.

BECK: God bless you. I`ll pray for you.

FOXWORTHY: I`m not allowed to sing in the car right now, if that tells you where we`re at.

BECK: I came home the other night, and I still had makeup on and walked out, and I said, "Hey, kids, come on, we have to go to the store. I walked in the story, and I had this TV makeup on." Oh my gosh. They were just, "Dad, you have makeup on." So I played it up.

FOXWORTHY: Do you get the speech? Like, before their friends get in the car, "Dad, you cannot -- do not sing and do not do that drumming thing."

BECK: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I like to do the thing in the mall because they -- because if they misbehave, I`ve decided there`s no real punishment anymore that really, you know, matters.

FOXWORTHY: Right.

BECK: And so I just take them to the mall, and, you know, I say, "Hey, by the way, remember that thing you`re not doing? Here`s what`s going to happen. When we get out to the mall, Dad`s going to do this, `Oh yes`!"

FOXWORTHY: I actually did that.

BECK: You did it? It works, doesn`t it?

FOXWORTHY: Well, I got the eye roll. Because they had the friends in the car and I forgot, and I started singing to something that was on the radio. And I got the -- and so when I pulled up to the stop sign, I put the car in park, and got out and started dancing in the street.

BECK: Yes.

FOXWORTHY: It is like, you give me the eye -- as many times as I`ve changed your diaper and driven you to soccer practice, don`t you give me the eye roll.

BECK: They hate it.

FOXWORTHY: Oh, yes.

BECK: They absolutely hate it. Is there a -- is there a -- I call them worm hole moments. Is there a thing about -- that`s happening in society right now that you -- it`s like you slip through a worm hole, and you`re like, wait a minute. It looks suspiciously like the America I grew up in.

But you just for the life of -- first worm hole for me, and it didn`t occur to me while it was happening. It occurred to me one time when I went and bought Fiji water. I had purchased water forever. And then it dawned on me, I`m like, when in the hell did he start buying water? And I thought, my grandfather would have beaten the snot out of me for buying water.

FOXWORTHY: The most idiotic thing in the world, because you drink it -- you turn -- when you were a kid, you turned on the hose, and you had to let it run for a minute to get the spiders and the hot water out of it.

BECK: Right.

FOXWORTHY: You know, it`s like the cover of this. When I was a kid, if at the end of the day you had dirt on your shirt and leaves in your hair and mud on your shoes, you`d had a good day.

BECK: Yes.

FOXWORTHY: If your mother made you get undressed on the porch before you came in the house, you had a great day. And it`s almost like we`ve lost that. It`s like put down the thing and go outside and use this imagination.

BECK: But you can`t -- I mean, at least here, I mean...

FOXWORTHY: Well, you know, we`ve all done that. Because I left L.A. -- I left L.A. to move back to Georgia so my kids could have a much more normal life. And even as a parent, you know, my kids are like, "Hey, Dad, can we ride our bikes over to So-and-So`s house?"

And I`m thinking, no, you better not, whereas when I was a kid, I rode my bike across the two main streets of town, across the railroad tracks.

BECK: Oh yes.

FOXWORTHY: My granddad worked at the fire station. You`d stop by and hang out with him, and you know, you came home when the street lights came on.

BECK: That`s what my mom used to say. I remember her saying, in my memory serves me right, come home before dark. She may have -- she may have just been like whatever.

FOXWORTHY: Whatever.

BECK: But I mean, that was it, you know. Come home -- come home before dark.

FOXWORTHY: And we`ve lost that.

BECK: We have.

FOXWORTHY: I don`t know where it went. But we did lose it.

BECK: How do we -- how do we find it again? Do we find it again? Because America, you know, I just read the president -- no, not the president of France, the foreign minister of France, who I follow closely, just said the magic of America is over.

Is it?

FOXWORTHY: You know, I don`t know that. I mean, when I think about - - like I`m real interested in Africa. And I went over there we daughter a year or so ago. But I had somebody from Africa say, "At one point in the United States you must have had great leadership, because you were able to take all these different people from different origins and ethnicity and unite them towards a common cause." And he said, "We`ve never been able to do that in Africa. You have all these different tribes that won`t talk to each other."

And I thought, you know, that`s what America was. It was...

BECK: Melting pot.

FOXWORTHY: Was a melting pot that we all were, like, headed in the same direction, and it`s -- and now, it`s like the cattle drive have started to break up. You know?

BECK: Do you think that`s true or do you think it`s -- see, I used to think that was true. But I think -- I think -- I think the regular forgotten man America -- you know, just kind of the regular American that, you know, we all used to be. I think they`re more of us than the crazies, and we surround them. They don`t surround us.

I think people are sick of -- I don`t Democrat or Republican, you hate them both.

FOXWORTHY: Yes. You`re sick of it. You know, it`s like when I started doing the redneck jokes. And early on somebody said, "Well, you can`t do that. You`re talking about the lowest common denominator."

And I said, "I`m not. I`ve been to all 50 states. I`ve been to part of all 50 states. It is the most common denominator. It is the backbone of the country. These are the people that get up and go to work every day, that go to church. If you`ve got to go to war, they go do that. That`s what this country is."

For some reason, we`re silent. We let the ones on the outside make all the hoopla and we just kind of keep...

BECK: I think it`s this. I think they don`t have connection to the television camera. And I think they -- you know? They see what`s on television. And then they go, well, that must be -- I mean, that must be what regular life is, and it`s not. It`s totally not.

FOXWORTHY: It`s totally not.

BECK: Yes.

FOXWORTHY: But we -- but we just kind of keep plodding along, and I think it is the majority and we have our moments. You know, I mean, it was like right after 9/11. It was like everybody, you know -- I remember being in the grocery store. And I could hear a lady singing, "God Bless America," two hours later, and it was like my eyes welled up. It`s like, yes. That`s...

BECK: Right.

FOXWORTHY: And whatever we had in that moment, it`s like we`ve already started to forget, which is human nature. I mean, every time I go through the children`s hospital I think I`m never going to take for granted again that my kids are healthy, and two weeks later I`ve forgotten. I mean, it`s what we do. We forget.

BECK: The name of the book is "Dirt On My Shirt." It`s Jeff Foxworthy. We`ll be back in a second.

FOXWORTHY: And your son`s favorite book.

BECK: It`s crazy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOXWORTHY: Sophisticated people invest their money in stock portfolios. Rednecks invest our money in commemorative plates. Yes, that`s the Legends of NASCAR series right there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOXWORTHY: I know some people will say, "Well, you know, sexually it`s more exciting when you`re single." I don`t know about that. You ever tried to have sex with two little kids in the same house?

My wife and I put our kids to bed. We`re running down the hall pulling off clothes like we`re hitting the beach at Normandy: "Go, baby, go! Go, go, baby!"

"Daddy!"

"No! They got me. Start without me!"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: You know what? That`s horrible. Oh, my wife is going to kill me for this. Baby monitors. Do you have baby monitors?

FOXWORTHY: Oh, yes.

BECK: Oh, yes.

FOXWORTHY: You know, what, but...

BECK: My wife won`t turn them off for anything or during anything. You know what I mean? This is just like -- OK, this is wrecking the mood for me, honey.

FOXWORTHY: Yes, it`s not -- and you`ve got to be real sure that you put the right end in the right bedroom.

BECK: Yes.

FOXWORTHY: Because like when our girls were little, we didn`t hear our oldest daughter cry for three months and her first words were, "Oh yes, baby, just like that." And...

BECK: You know, you just -- before we went into the break, you talked about NASCAR in your routine.

FOXWORTHY: Yes.

BECK: Every time -- it pisses me off. Every year I want to go down to the Daytona. Every year. And I forget. Because I`m not into the NASCAR thing. You know, never done it.

I went to the Indianapolis 500 one year. The most amazing thing I`ve ever seen. Every year I want to go to the Daytona 500. What I`m asking you is, do you have any connections? Can you get good seats?

FOXWORTHY: Yes, I can get -- do you want to go, really?

BECK: Yes, I really want to go. Every year I think, "I want to go," and then...

FOXWORTHY: Yes.

BECK: And then I`m like it`s Friday, and I`m like, "Oh, crap."

FOXWORTHY: You know what you need to go to, is Talladega. Because I was the grand marshal at Talladega in the spring. And I mean, trust me. There`s not a lot of research going on in the redneck jokes. It`s pretty much my family and friends.

And I got down on the infield in Talladega, and I was like this is the level that I never knew existed. I mean, this was -- this was redneck royalty down there.

BECK: Yes. Really? What is redneck royalty?

FOXWORTHY: Well, because first thing, we`re walking through, and it`s middle of the afternoon. And there`s somebody`s grandmother, like 71, with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, going, "Hey Jeff," and pulls up her shirt.

And I`m "Oh, my God. I could have gone my entire life without seeing that."

BECK: When I went to the Indy 500, I was in the stands. And I looked down, and there were like -- there were cars on fire.

FOXWORTHY: Oh, yes.

BECK: In the infield.

FOXWORTHY: The infield is...

BECK: Oh, there`s stabbings. It`s...

FOXWORTHY: I go to the infield...

BECK: They should just fence it off and make it a prison and just move it to a...

FOXWORTHY: But they`re great people. They have so much fun. I could go to the infield of Talladega for five minutes and get two hours` of material. It`s that good.

BECK: I`m not sure the Indy people are the same as the NASCAR people.

FOXWORTHY: It used to be the open wheel tracks. You know, a little more champagne crowds. You need to do like Daytona or Talladega.

BECK: Seriously. I`m seriously hitting you up for tickets.

FOXWORTHY: All right.

BECK: They say that comedy came from pain.

FOXWORTHY: Yes.

BECK: I looked at your life. I mean, you spent some time with IBM.

FOXWORTHY: Yes. Like five years.

BECK: I mean, was that it? Was that the pain?

FOXWORTHY: You know what? I don`t -- I believe -- because I always heard that. People always say, "Well, comics laugh on the outside and cry on the inside." And it`s like, there`s some like that, but there`s a lot of them that are not. I think...

BECK: You`re in denial?

FOXWORTHY: No, I`m not. I think I learned to be funny because with IBM, you moved like every two years and so, you know, I counted one day. I went to, like, ten different schools between first day and graduation.

BECK: Your dad was with IBM?

FOXWORTHY: Yes. And my folks divorced when I was, like, 8 or 9. And then we moved again to live with my grandparents, then moved again.

BECK: There`s the pain.

FOXWORTHY: There`s the pain.

BECK: Open up.

FOXWORTHY: Let it go.

BECK: Lay it on. Make him cry.

FOXWORTHY: But I was always going to a new school and I learned real quick if you were funny, you could make friends quick.

BECK: Right.

FOXWORTHY: And so -- but I kind of think people are -- I don`t think you can teach somebody to be funny. I think you teach them to be a better writer or how to put an act together. But the people that are funny -- you know people. I mean, there`s people here that tell a great joke and people that tell a horrible joke.

BECK: Right.

FOXWORTHY: Same way with being funny. My youngest daughter -- my oldest daughter is the very studious, you know, intellectual one. My youngest daughter can do impersonations of the principle, of all the teachers -- and I`m going, "Don`t do this. You`re going to get in trouble. Don`t do this." She`s just funny. She`s entertained us since she was 2.

BECK: How do you -- this is weird. Let me relate to you in a really odd sort of way. I`m an alcoholic and did everything bad that you could possibly imagine, and my kids know it. And so, they -- when I say, "Don`t do any of these things because it`s really bad," you know, they look at me and go like, "Oh yes, dad." No. Really. I mean, they`re really hurting now.

FOXWORTHY: Right.

BECK: How do you tell your kid, "Don`t do this. You`ll get in a lot of trouble," when you`ve got barbecue sauce with your face on it?

FOXWORTHY: Yes. It`s like we`re going to Hawaii every year. Why shouldn`t I do it? I don`t know. I mean, I just think that -- I don`t know that it`s all born out of -- I have a great life. I`m a pretty happy guy.

BECK: Yes. Well, you`re married to -- married 23 years.

FOXWORTHY: Twenty-three years.

BECK: Twenty-three years, 23 years.

FOXWORTHY: Yes.

BECK: Secret to that?

FOXWORTHY: Got to talk to each other all the time. I wake up talking to her. I go to bed talking to her.

BECK: Does she ever -- because you know, you do -- because I talk about my wife on the air all the time. And, you know -- and she`s always going after it. And she`s cool. She`s great with it and everything. I do get hit in the arm a lot from her.

FOXWORTHY: Yes.

BECK: You know, I mean, joking or something and she is -- smacks me in the arm.

FOXWORTHY: You know, when I get -- it`s funny because she never has to -- my wife`s name is Gregg. That`s really her name. Gregg -- G-R-E-G- G. She`s a twin. Two girls, Gregg and Glenn (ph). But she never has a chance to defend herself, so I`m just up there talking about her...

BECK: I won`t ask any questions. No. That`s...

FOXWORTHY: She`s a girl.

BECK: Whatever.

FOXWORTHY: Then we`re, like, in the airport one day. And these people come up and they look at her and they look at her, and they go, "Are you the one with the cold butt?"

And she`s like, "Quit talking about my butt on television."

So yes. She doesn`t think it`s funny.

BECK: I think every woman has a cold butt.

FOXWORTHY: They do.

BECK: They do. You know what? I found the greatest thing...

FOXWORTHY: They get in the bed, and they want to put it on you to warm it up.

BECK: Yes. I wouldn`t mind that.

FOXWORTHY: I`ll send her over the next time we`re in town.

BECK: No. Not necessarily looking for it from Gregg. Somebody sent me split sheets. Have you ever seen this?

FOXWORTHY: No.

BECK: The best. Half of it, flannel sheets, the other half cotton. I brought them home, and my wife went, "This is fantastic. Except it should have an electric blanket on my side."

FOXWORTHY: Yes. Oh my gosh.

BECK: Oh, my goodness. Like they`re bloodless.

FOXWORTHY: They are bloodless. You have to lay on a rock out in the sunshine just to get their body temperature built up.

BECK: All right. Back with more Jeff Foxworthy in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOXWORTHY: I remember as a child, my mom would leave me, my brother and my sister in the car while she ran into the grocery store. If you did that to a poodle now, they would fry you on the 6 o`clock news.

And I tell you something else. Now that I`m grown and have kids of my own, I understand why my mother didn`t want to take three younguns in the grocery store. I would rather take a beating with a brick stick than take kids in the grocery store. Because soon as those doors slide open, those kids start begging like homeless people at Christmas time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: So true, man. My wife says to me all the time, she`ll say, "Hey, you know, you got to go to the store? You want to go to the store?" And she`ll say, "You want to take the kids with you?" I`m like...

FOXWORTHY: No.

BECK: "Are you out of your mind?"

FOXWORTHY: Yes, because the cereal aisle is the one you just dread the whole trip. It`s like, I don`t want to -- I ain`t going to the cereal aisle.

BECK: Did you read about the woman who was actually -- I`m trying to remember. It was just in the news the other day. She was -- she was dropping off clothing at a Goodwill thing, and she had all the kids in the car.

She said, "Come on, kids. Get out of the car." And she pulled up to the Goodwill, you know, those big boxes where you put the clothes? Do you know what I`m talking about?

FOXWORTHY: Yes. The donation.

BECK: So put the stuff in the Goodwill. She locks the cars because there`s an infant in the car, but she`s right there. I mean, she`s this close. The cop comes, arrests her. Arrests her.

FOXWORTHY: Because there`s nothing better to do I guess.

BECK: What is -- what is that about? Do you think that -- because you got a houseful of women.

FOXWORTHY: I do.

BECK: I do. You think women are smarter than men?

FOXWORTHY: Yes.

BECK: Do you?

FOXWORTHY: Well, which is not really that big a deal, because what that`s saying is that you are smarter than a creature, that every time it takes off its underwear it tries to pick it up with its toes, flip them in the air and catch them with its hand. You know? So it ain`t that big a deal that you`re smarter than we are.

BECK: Yes. It`s saying you`re smarter than a lizard, yes.

FOXWORTHY: But it is a good feeling when you catch them on the first try. You know?

Do you do that? Take the underwear off, pick it up...

BECK: My son does it. He`s 3. He`s already doing it. Oh, yes.

Do you -- do you have like a -- do you think you still have a normal life? How do you...

FOXWORTHY: Oh, yes.

BECK: How do you do it?

FOXWORTHY: You know what? I think I have as normal a life as I can have for what I do for a living. It`s always -- it`s about priorities. My family has always been my priority.

BECK: I know. You did...

FOXWORTHY: And my dad was married six times. My dad was the womanizer deluxe. Sometime we could go out, and I could tell you stories forever.

BECK: There`s the pain.

FOXWORTHY: No.

BECK: How do you feel about that?

FOXWORTHY: You keep going back to -- but I think when you come from something, you either end up being just like it or you end up being 180. And I always saw the residual damage of that. You know? I mean, it was fun to tell jokes about, but you saw what happened at home when you`re out doing this.

And so, I lived next door to my brother. We`re like the most loyal old family dogs in the world. And so, I love what I do for -- I love my job but, you know, when you`re on the road, especially those early days, you see people making some decisions that you`re like, this is not really smart.

BECK: No.

FOXWORTHY: And so I just kind of kept the same friends that I always had, and we go out there on the road and go -- they go, "Come on, let`s go out to the bar." And I`m like, you know what? Good things didn`t happen to my dad when he went to the bar, so I`m just going to the hotel and eat room service and call home.

BECK: Right. Just like Eliot Spitzer.

Back with Jeff Foxworthy in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOXWORTHY, COMEDIAN: What were they thinking? Some of those toys. Did anybody else have the swing set? My parents were to busy to actually pour the concrete in the ground. We had the swing set. Every time you swung above this high the front legs would go Wah! Wah! Poom. There were stuntmen that would not swing on our swing set.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: You know what`s funny is I found -- my wife said to me one time, do you want to have some rice pudding? I said, I never had rice pudding. She started to make it and I said that`s rice and raisins because I had rice and raisins. I used to have rice and raisins. My mom made rice and threw in the raisins. And as I realize as she was making it, my mom was just too lady to finish the rice pudding.

FOXWORTHY: Exactly.

BECK: It`s good enough for you. Here. Here`s the rice and raisins.

FOXWORTHY: The stuff that they -- you know, it`s like when my girls were little and I`m having to put latches on the cabinets and I`m thinking, my parents had a 500-pound television on top of an aluminum TV tray. And my dad`s theory was, let him pull it on his head a couple of times, he`ll learn.

BECK: Exactly right. How we survived is beyond me.

FOXWORTHY: I don`t know. Put a penny in the light socket. See what happens, big man. You know? I mean, that`s how you learned.

BECK: That sounds exactly like my grandfather. What -- what do you learn from people when you`re on the road? You know, I think -- because if you - - if you listen to people let`s say at news networks, they don`t get it. I watch the news, and then you listen to the politicians in Washington and you are like, these people have no fricking clue at all what they`re even talking about. The answers aren`t that hard to find.

FOXWORTHY: You know what? I`ve argued that forever. It is like when you had the thing at the top of the show. Sold more comedy records than anybody. Nobody in New York or L.A. believes that. They`re like, no he hasn`t.

BECK: You`re the invisible man in New York.

FOXWORTHY: Or L.A. You get in the meetings -- I remember being in a meeting in L.A. and the guy had a turtle neck and his hair pulled back in a pony tail and three or four earrings and he had on a cashmere turtleneck and a blazer and he goes, Jeff, I know your people. And I`m looking at him, my people would beat the hell out of you. You know? But to me, it`s like between the two, there`s 200 million people and they would tell me, well, you`re not hip or you`re not on the cutting edge. I`m like there`s 200 million people not hip and not on the cutting edge. You don`t get that.

BECK: You know what it is? Now that I`ve lived here in New York for two years and New York is great in many ways.

FOXWORTH: I love New York. Love New York.

BECK: It is a great place to visit. It is a -- it is a great place to visit. But when you live here after a while, everything is going all the time. Everything that`s big starts here. Et cetera. Et cetera. You can go to the middle of the country and, you know, I`ve been with New Yorkers who grew up in here in New York and they go into the middle of the country and they`re like, there`s nothing going on here. Or I had one New Yorker stand at a Wal-Mart. It was fantastic. At a Wal-Mart parking lot and went, there`s so much space here.

Or another writer who was in Long Island that we were on the way to the airport and he said, this America is great. And I said, what are you talking about? He said -- and he was dead serious. A Jiffy Lube next to a Starbucks. It`s fantastic.

I mean, they have no idea what it`s like.

FOXWORTHY: You got your theories. I`ll tell you one of the -- I think there`s too much going on. You know, it`s like the old thing, be still and know that I`m God. We never have be still moments anymore because we filled them up with -- used to be you in your car and go to wherever you`re car and somebody need you, call ahead and now we filled up everywhere moment of time. It`s like with the microwave making potatoes in six minutes and saved you an hour. What happened to that hour? I ain`t sitting around going I have an hour to kill. It is why we`re all ADD. There`s too many things to do and you don`t have those be still moments. You don`t -- you know, with your family. I mean, there`s always something going on.

And I don`t think we were intended to live that way.

BECK: No, we weren`t. We weren`t. I mean, you know what we did that changed our whole family is honor the Sabbath.

FOXWORTHY: A day off.

BECK: But really do it. My wife and I, we thought, um, when we first started honoring the Sabbath, we thought, OK, that`s cool and first started going to church and really starting to honor the Sabbath and after church we would go to the Taco Bell and sit an read the scriptures there in the parking lot and about halfway through I went, we probably shouldn`t be making the people at Taco Bell work. You know? But now, so now all we do is we only watch things that are spiritually uplifting. We only read things like that on Sunday. We take a day and shut it all off. Nothing.

FOXWORTHY: I think the whole idea -- was god going, you know what? I`ll take care of you every day. I`ll provide the manna every day. Take a day off from you putting out the effort and just trust me for one day. Just trust me one day and I`ll take care of you. We`ve lost that. We are like so do oriented now.

BECK: Yeah.

FOXWORTHY: We can`t just sit -- be still for a minute. I think it`s terrible. I think it`s -- it`s -- you know, to me, the older I get, life is all relationships. Life is about relationships with your family, with your friends and with your God. And it`s -- and the rest of it does not matter. I`ve been as poor as you can be. I`ve made money than I ever dreamed and the money doesn`t do it. It doesn`t.

BECK: The money is -- you know what? I think if you have the right perspective, money is just a by-product.

FOXWORTHY: But it really is. And I found that from being in L.A. because every day I went to work and around some of the most famous, some of the richest people in the world and some of them were some of the miserable human beings I had ever met and I was like, that`s not it. That ain`t the key.

BECK: This is a theory. I can`t get anybody in Hollywood to agree with me. I wouldn`t expect them to. I think the people in Hollywood -- I mean, the real -- you know, are some of the most miserable people on the face of the Earth. Because they have put everything into fame, beauty, money, stardom, sex, everything else all of the stuff that`s really totally meaningless. I think they`re empty inside. And .

FOXWORTHY: But you think about it. And it`s not everybody in Hollywood. I`ve got some great friends in Hollywood.

BECK: You know Ed?

FOXWORTHY: Ed`s great. Wears blue jeans all the time. Got brown hair. I know Ed.

BECK: He is not miserable.

FOXWORTHY: But when -- I think what`s happened to people is if I`m famous I`ll be happy or if I get rich I`ll be happy and when it doesn`t fill that empty space, you have nowhere to go and now you have no hope and that`s a real bad place.

BECK: That`s for me for alcoholism is what it was. I tried to fill it with -- every time I accomplish something, I think maybe it`s the next thing. I got to have this. Then I`ll be happy. Then I`ve got to have this. So what did you -- were you always filled? Did you -- what role does God play in your life?

FOXWORTHY: It`s a huge role in my life. I mean, since I was a little kid. Well, I mean, you know, my mother goes to church three times a week. Sings in the Baptist Church choir. My dad .

BECK: Wait a minute. You`re from the South and you`re Baptist.

FOXWORTHY: Yeah.

BECK: And you`re Baptist.

FOXWORTHY: You know what? I`m not Christian. I`m -- I don`t believe -- denomination means to divide. I don`t -- but my dad was -- it was the total -- you know, he had six marriages and affairs and girlfriends and so I was really from a dichotomy and so when I was growing up, mom got boring and it was real fun to go to dad`s house on the weekend. And then I started having kids and you kind of go back to the thing that mom -- you know what? I don`t want to raise -- I want to raise my kids like this. Yeah, it is a real big part of my life.

BECK: I think that kids -- we`re trying to -- I think they instinctively - - first of all, they come. They know. They forget what -- you know, you come with everything that you have and they kind of forget we deprogram them and bring them into the material world but I think they want that structure. My son, we`re teaching right now we`re trying to teach the Ten Commandments and he was -- he doesn`t have the thou shall not steal thing down yet. He doesn`t really understand the steal thing. He was at church the other day at a play date and he was proudly announcing to all of the mothers I`m stealing. He was very proud.

FOXWORTHY: Doesn`t have the whole concept down.

BECK: Doesn`t matter. He says I`m stealing today. It is like .

FOXWORTHY: The idea behind it is now like God going, hey, I created you. Just take my advice. This is the stuff you really don`t want to do because it just doesn`t lead good places.

BECK: Yeah.

FOXWORTHY: I ain`t -- it ain`t -- it ain`t the hammer coming down. I love you. If you do this stuff, good things don`t happen.

BECK: Yeah. Do you know -- you don`t believe in a vengeful God?

FOXWORTHY: No, not at all. Not at all.

BECK: I think he is just like -- I think he is just like that. He`s a dad who`s just like, come on, man. I just had this conversation with my .

FOXWORTHY: I think that`s what God gives us children. I want to give you a little bit of how I feel about you. And the reason it`s perfect love is you can`t ever do anything to earn it. It`s just -- I just love you. I just love you all the time. And that`s the way you feel about your kids.

BECK: If you really -- my eldest daughter and I were just talking about this the other night that if you really -- if you understand God you really do understand how to be a parent. Because you never -- you never punish them to hurt them. You never do it with vengeance. You never take something away for any -- you want to give your kids everything.

FOXWORTHY: Absolutely.

BECK: You want to but you don`t because .

FOXWORTHY: But to me the key to why it`s a perfect love, when you do things because you have to, it`s not a perfect -- when you do things because you want to and I say that all the time at my house. I said if everybody in this house would act like I am third, we would never have a problem. You have God, family and friends and then you got yourself. If you put yourself third and do things because you -- I love you. I want to do this stuff for you, it would be a better place to live.

BECK: Back with Jeff Foxworthy in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOXWORTHY: Women rule the world. Men think we do because as much as men bitch about women taking a long time, you ever notice, we never leave without the women. That`s because they`re smarter, guys, and they know how to keep us on their schedule. This is my wife`s best trick right here. You`re not wearing that, are you? No, I ain`t wearing this. Just what I`m wearing while you`re getting ready.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Back with Jeff Foxworthy. We were just having a conversation off air and my ADD kicked in and I can`t for the life of me remember what it was.

FOXWORTHY: I was saying I was watching the thing this morning talking the governor.

BECK: Oh, yeah. Governor Spitzer.

FOXWORTHY: We get so fascinated with that. But I think deep down, everybody still wants integrity and character. When you think back to 9/11, you think those guy that ran into the buildings to go try to save people they never met and you watch that and remember the way they felt and you were like, man, I would love to think in that moment, faced with the same thing, that`s how I would respond or you look at people that have been married for 50 years. No matter -- because life is hard but you look at somebody that was able to do it and you`re like, man, that`s awesome. That`s awesome. They did the -- they did the right thing or they did it the hard way or the guy that`s worked the same place for 40 years to put his kids through school and you are like, that`s cool. So I think deep down, even though we love the sensational, you know, people falling on their face and tripping up and making mistakes, deep down we all like character.

BECK: Yeah. I don`t think -- I don`t think it`s that deep down. I really don`t. I think -- I think it`s just -- America don`t do this. Turn your television off for a year. You know what I mean? Only one channel.

FOXWORTHY: Watch this show.

BECK: Watch this show for an hour. That`s all I`m asking. But turn your television off. Have you ever done it?

FOXWORTHY: All the time.

BECK: I mean, for a year. Turn it off.

FOXWORTHY: For a whole year? I go days without it on.

BECK: I did it for a year. I turned it off for a year.

FOXWORTHY: Did you feel like you missed anything?

BECK: Nothing. The only thing that I missed was the conversation when people say, did you see that show last night and you kind of wanted to belong to that social club of talking about whatever the hot show was but nothing else. And then, the biggest shock was turning it back on. And it`s shocking when you see it. You become -- I mean, for me, when I was growing up, my grandparents, they had the TV that grandpa used to always say, got to warm up the set and go in and warm up the set.

FOXWORTHY: Turn it on on Thursday because you watch it on Saturday.

BECK: And we`d watch Lawrence Welk and wrestling and all we were allowed to watch for the whole week. That was it.

FOXWORTHY: We were required to watch "Hee-Haw." It was required in the South.

BECK: We did watch "Hee-Haw" as well. Yes, I now remember. But so that was it. And, so life happens. Now, life doesn`t happen at home because you`re so tired and everything else. And you sit down and you watch -- and it just becomes this. You`re just watching it.

FOXWORTHY: Yeah. There`s a video game, you know, the commercial where the kids are playing the video game and the guy on the motorcycle says put the thing down and get outside and go on a motorcycle. And I`m like, yeah.

BECK: Do you think that that -- I think it partly -- you can answer policy or whatever. Talk politics if you want. No big deal if you don`t want. To I think that`s part of the thing that Barack Obama is appealing to Barack Obama. That guy`s policies make blood shoot out of my eyes but the idea what he says, we can be better. We can be better. I don`t think he`s going to make us better but we can be. But we`ve allowed ourselves to become something that we`re not. We are that shining city on the hill and I think people really -- they want it with everything in them. It`s not deep down. They want it with everything in them.

FOXWORTHY: I always tell my kids, be kind and try. You have to try. And be kind. But -- but it`s all tied together, too. You know, that`s my frustration and I have always avoided political humor because I thought, I`m trying to make everybody in the room laugh. When you do political humor, you have half the room that hates you right off the bat but it`s -- you know, sometimes you have to go a little deeper. It is like, nobody wants to be at war right now. I mean, nobody. And the people that get up and go do this .

BECK: God bless them.

FOXWORTHY: Heroes, heroes, heroes and their families. But on the other hand, you got to have a plan. You can`t just say, we`re avoiding this because to me, if you think back to 9/11, one of the greatest tragedies -- horrible that all these people died and happened in New York City, but what happened was the airline industry and the hotel industry was almost destroyed in this country and the economy went right down the tank. They almost brought us to our knees and so to me I`m thinking, OK, right now as bad as we hate this, it`s in their backyard. If we just get up and go away, do you think it`s going to go away? To me that`s really naive.

BECK: Jeff, I have to tell you something. I think the frustration -- you saw the war numbers plummet. And that is only because I believe in -- I can`t find anybody to agree with me in New York City but I truly believe those war numbers plummet because America doesn`t mind fighting a war. They don`t want to but they don`t mind fighting a war but they know we can fight it and we can fight it fast and we can kick anybody`s ass and we can win. That`s the problem. It was kind of like for a while there, we were kind of like, what are we doing right now? Stop tying peoples` hands. Get `em!

You know what I mean?

FOXWORTHY: But when you`re going to sit here in an election and talk about the economy, and at the same time talk about, OK, we`re going to abandon this and they`re not two separate issues. They`re tied together.

BECK: Exactly right.

FOXWORTHY: Because if we leave over here, they`re coming here. We saw what happened to the economy so it`s all tied together.

BECK: It is. All right. Back with rapid fire. A final segment with Jeff Foxworthy in a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOXWORTHY: Kids today have it made. I mean, if they don`t like what`s on television, they have got what, 40 or 50 channels to choose from. Remember how many channels we had when we were kids? Three. And if the president was on, your night was shot. The president`s on! He`s on every channel! We`re going to miss "Flipper"!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: This segment makes everybody on this program nervous. Jeff Foxworthy is here. He is the author of the new book, "Dirt on my Shirt." Read it to my kids. I read it to my kids. And the favorite -- favorite. OK. Rapid fire. Ready?

FOXWORTHY: No.

BECK: It is easy.

FOXWORTHY: OK.

BECK: In comedy, anything off limits?

FOXWORTHY: Yeah, yeah. Rape. There`s a lot of things that are off limits.

BECK: With the rape thing -- That`s good. With Barack Obama, are you worried about political correctness and jokes with Barack Obama?

FOXWORTHY: Yeah. You know, many fact we were talking about somebody today. Here you have someone that`s black in the election and somebody that`s old and someone that`s a woman and we were talking about stereotypes. I said hey, I understand that, I`m from the south and somebody near in New York said, you`re right. They said, growing up any time I heard a southern accent, I automatically took off I.Q. points. Yeah, it`s strange.

BECK: Men or women funnier?

FOXWORTHY: Oh, my gosh.

BECK: As the .

FOXWORTHY: Guys probably because we have a more open parameter. Women are kinder. Men will take their shots.

BECK: What`s out there that`s hugely popular that you just cannot figure out why.

FOXWORTHY: Text messaging. It`s like if you really need to talk to me, just call me.

BECK: Finish the sentence. Success to me is .

FOXWORTHY: Family.

BECK: If you -- would you invite this person to dinner? Ready?

FOXWORTHY: All right.

BECK: Hillary Clinton.

FOXWORTHY: No.

BECK: Really?

FOXWORTHY: No, no.

BECK: Not wearing the pantsuit even?

FOXWORTHY: No.

BECK: Ronald Reagan?

FOXWORTHY: Yeah.

BECK: OK. Ann Coulter?

FOXWORTHY: Maybe.

BECK: Keith Olbermann.

FOXWORTHY: Yeah. Keith makes me laugh.

BECK: Really?

FOXWORTHY: Sometimes, yeah.

BECK: He is a son of a .

FOXWORTHY: Coming to your house. Reading the book to your kids.

BECK: Eliot Spitzer?

FOXWORTHY: No.

BECK: Yeah. Me?

FOXWORTHY: Yeah.

BECK: OK. I`ll take that as an invitation. What makes America great?

FOXWORTHY: The spirit of its people.

BECK: Turning 50 soon.

FOXWORTHY: Yeah.

BECK: What`s that feel like?

FOXWORTHY: Like another birthday.

BECK: Have any of the birthdays freaked you out?

FOXWORTHY: No. Not so far.

BECK: Really?

FOXWORTHY: Not so far. You?

BECK: Forty snuck on me weird. It happened and then a week later I`m like, what a loser I am. You know? I just thought I haven`t done anything I thought I would do by the time I was 40.

FOXWORTHY: Part of me feels like I`m 20 and I`m like, I got stuff to do.

BECK: Got to go. A pleasure, sir. Pleasure. Jeff Foxworthy. America, from New York, good night.

END