PASADENA, Calif. — That Craig Ferguson would joke about his new book comes as no surprise. As the growing number of fans who watch his late-night talk show are already well aware, Ferguson makes jokes about everything.
"My book is reasonably priced and available on September the 22nd," he said. "It's an autobiography, and I'm looking forward to reading it."
Actually, "American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot" is "the story of how I ended up here, which surprises me as much as anyone."
As a boy growing up in Scotland, Ferguson wanted to be an astronaut.
"America to me was … astronauts and NASA and all of that stuff. All of that kind of very positive image of America," he said.
He didn't end up at Cape Canaveral — Ferguson's life took a decidedly unusual path. He's been the drummer in a punk-rock band; a construction worker; a bouncer; a modern dancer; a musical theater star; the host of a Scottish TV show about archaeology; an American sitcom co-star — best known for his role as the boss on "Drew Carey"; a movie writer/director/star; the author of a novel; and the unlikely host of CBS's "The Late Late Show" — a job he got through on-air auditions after the previous host quit.
He's had drug and alcohol problems, and even briefly considered suicide.
"By 17, I thought I would be dead by the time I was this age," said Ferguson, 47. "Actually, in the process of writing the book, you kind of do go back and think about these times and what I thought. I always kind of half expected I'd end up doing something in show business because it was tolerant of drunkenness and you could meet girls.
"But, I'm married, and I'm a teetotaler, but I'm still here because I don't know where else to go."
The minute Ferguson opens his mouth, it's quite clear he wasn't born in the United States. Which is something he often jokes about on "The Late Late Show."
But his viewers also saw Ferguson take his citizenship test and be sworn in as a naturalized America. And it's that journey that's the subject of his new book.
"It's very important to me," he said. " It's very important to me as an immigrant and as someone who had to fill in a lot of forms and pass a test to be an American. I am very proud and very pleased to be an American."
Other than various right-wing talk-radio hosts, Ferguson metaphorically waves the American flag more than anyone in the American media. He starts out each "Late Late Show" by declaring, "It's a great day for America."
But while his book is about his road to becoming a citizen, it's also about the angst that accompanied it.
"There's something else attached to becoming an American," Ferguson said. "There is a melancholy attached to it. There is a strangeness attached to leaving your past and making the new country your present. And I wanted to not shy away from that."
Which is not to say he has any regrets about becoming an American.
"It's very important to me," Ferguson said. "It's the defining thing of my own weltanschuaang" — his view of the world.
"America, for me, is a philosophical and emotional decision. It's not just jingoistic. I think it's certainly not just political. It's not a donkey or an elephant. It's a flag and an idea. It's a dream. It's a belief in fairness of opportunity. ... It's the only thing, maybe, that I have difficulty playing with in any kind of iconoclastic way on the show because it's such an important thing for me that I have trouble making fun of it."
Which is not the case when it comes to poking fun at his own book.
"It's a little bit different from the James Frey thing in the sense that a lot of it, I just couldn't remember, so I made it up. But I admitted that right away," Ferguson said with a grin.
e-mail: pierce@desnews.com