Greg Gutfeld Speaks About Unspeakable Truths: “Generally, Everybody Else In The Media Can Suck It”

Mediaite: There’s a shot you take at blogs. You call them, “One of the most disgusting, narcissistic, time-wasting developments of the last hundred years.”

Gutfeld: I include myself in this. As a 45-year-old man, I always think of my dad. When my dad was 45, he had 4 kids, worked as an accountant, made $25,000 dollars a year or something like that. The idea of him sitting down in front of a machine, telling people what he did that day, it would just seem so idiotic to him. And that’s what I do, and that’s what everybody does. They feel that every moment of their lives needs to be reported. What I really hate about Twitter and Facebook is that people use them in order to tell people that they’ve got a fast-paced life. 60% of their tweets and their Facebook status’ are about where they are traveling. It’s like, ‘I’m always at the airport,’ or ‘I just get off the train.’ ‘bored as hell at baggage claim.’ They always try to make it sound like it’s not about the traveling, like ‘oh I can’t seem to find my black bag, I hope they didn’t lose my luggage’ but all of it is subtle or not so subtle hints that they’re doing something more exciting than you are. I find that kind of nauseating.

“It is creepy to be childless and write children’s books. There’s something definitely wrong with that. Which makes it more appealing for me to do.”

Mediaite; But the book, at times, reads like a blog in a way. There are your thoughts…

Gutfeld: Well I started writing ‘unspeakable truths’ at Maxim. I started the section at the Daily Gut. I hate to say it but the Daily Gut was sort of like a diary where I kept everything, and then I started using them on Red Eye and I just kind of glommed them all together, rewrote them, or made them better. But you’re right, it is like a blog on paper.

Mediaite: There are a lot of Fox News personalities that write books, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, but they also have been writing children’s books. Are there any plans for a children’s book in your future?

Gutfeld: That’s a great idea. I would do a chidlren’s book – it would definitely be unicorn-based. It would be about a band of hardy unicorns that pick up litter with their horns. They fight litter. They’re litter-fighting unicorns. Well, you can’t do children’s books if you don’t have kids. I think that’s a law right?

Mediaite: I don’t know. It’s kind of creepy, I guess.

Gutfeld: It is creepy to be childless and write children’s books. There’s something definitely wrong with that. Which makes it more appealing for me to do.

Mediaite: There’s something in the book about tragedies meaning off days. I wanted to get your take on the most recent tragedy, the oil spill, that seems like it will be the story of the summer.

Gutfeld: I could go on forever. Well one thing is the toll-free number for BP which they put up for average citizens to call in with suggestions. That did not inspire any confidence in me. But the great thing was Bill Schulz actually called the number to see if it would work. And they picked up and he said, ‘I have a suggestion, why not gum? Why not a wad of gum?’ And it turns out that’s what they’re trying to do. Maybe I’m wrong about the 1-800 number. The mixture of mud and cement is really nothing more than a massive pile of gum. The other thing that bugs me about it is the real story here is that people died and we don’t hear about that as much. Instead you’re anticipating the sad cinematography of the oil-covered animals. We live in a weird time where we worry more about that than the people who died.

Mediaite: Let’s talk about Red Eye. The show has been around for a few years and really seems to have a place now in the Fox News lineup.

Gutfeld. Believe me, I don’t think there’s anyone who feels luckier than me. As somebody who had no experience in this, and was given the opportunity to do a show that has really been allowed to breathe and grow and has been given a lot of chances, given the fact that we really didn’t know what we were doing – if anything, it’s been kind of an organic delight. What you see there, grew there. Bill and Andy Levy, we grew together. I think that’s what the fans of the show appreciate. I tell you, Fox News channel has a huge pair of – I always try to think of a word that’s tasteful – plums, for putting us on.

Mediaite: Any chance there’s an occasional studio audience show that might happen?

Gutfeld: I want to. We’ve talked about it a lot. But the strange thing about the show is unlike other shows, there is no real rhythm. If you put a studio audience in, when a person says something, they anticipate laughter, the other people on set are quiet, someone starts talking again and people laugh. You find there’s a natural pace based on the audience laughter. At Red Eye, you don’t have that. It’s a conversation at a bar. Unfortunately there’s a lot of crosstalk, which I hate, but there’s also a lot of natural conversation. And I think it would be really awkward. The audience might not be laughing because they want to hear what’s going on. I’ve had this conversation so many times and we can never make up our mind. I suppose maybe it’s worth a shot to try it.

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