Speaker 1: My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast
Speaker 1: is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what
Speaker 1: brings them happiness.
Speaker 2: Here's Kathy Kenney.
Speaker 1: She played Mimi Terror and Blue Eyeshadow on The Drew
Speaker 1: Carey Show and Joy. All right, Kathy, you're on this
Speaker 1: podcast because you are a joy in my life.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 1: There's nothing I like better than the hearing the sound
Speaker 1: of you sucking on.
Speaker 2: A lozenge, clicking it against your teeth. Kathy, you are
Speaker 2: a joy.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you about joy because you
Speaker 1: are good at it.
Speaker 3: I've thought about joy a lot.
Speaker 1: It's because you're from the Midwest and you're chronically depressed
Speaker 1: in reality.
Speaker 2: I think that it is.
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, I think that I've always
Speaker 3: been one of these people who who's very Pollyanna, which
Speaker 3: can be a four letter word, you know, Pollyanna. Don't
Speaker 3: you know. I'm not chooting my own horn, but I
Speaker 3: but I feel like I need to explain the joy thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I wrote a book with my best friend Cindy Rats laugh.
Speaker 2: I remember Cindy Rat's laugh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's her real name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because she I would sometimes say she's all women,
Speaker 1: But then you would say, no, no, no, it's Peggy Ricey.
Speaker 2: It's all women.
Speaker 3: I like to keep your memory in line. But yeah,
Speaker 3: they're both all women. Really, yeah, I suppose that is true. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know when you think about it. Yeah, But Cindy
Speaker 3: and I wrote a book called Ready, Queen of your
Speaker 3: Own Life, The grown Up Woman's Guide to Claiming happiness
Speaker 3: and getting the life you deserve.
Speaker 2: That's great. Is anything left for the book once you
Speaker 2: finish the title?
Speaker 3: No, And that's what having an editor does for you.
Speaker 3: By the way, because I just I might have called
Speaker 3: it the book, but you know, she Chaffy's book, the
Speaker 3: book with a friend, Peggy, Cindy and ath.
Speaker 2: See. Now I've got Peggy Risky in my mind because
Speaker 2: she's all woman.
Speaker 3: She's all woman.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason why I said that is because I met
Speaker 1: her with you and I said that Peggy Risky, she's
Speaker 1: all woman.
Speaker 3: Is that what I said? Yes, you did. And it's
Speaker 3: funny because I just told somebody the other day. Sometimes
Speaker 3: Craig thinks it's Cindy and he goes, Cindy, rats last,
Speaker 3: she's all woman, And then I go, no, that's Peggy Risky,
Speaker 3: that's all woman. Oh right, right, you go. And then
Speaker 3: we've had this conversation we.
Speaker 1: Have and here's the thing. They're both all women, Yes
Speaker 1: they are. Yeah, I know, I just and from the Midwest, right,
Speaker 1: indeed are you? So I could say, Kathleen Kenny, she's
Speaker 1: all women from the Midwest, now, but you're from them?
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 1: I think the Midwest is misrepresented in American popular culture,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you why, because I think the
Speaker 1: Midwest is quite scary.
Speaker 3: Serial killers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beer, cheese, what's scary? Well, I'm beer scary to me.
Speaker 1: Cheese can sell. I know cheese can be scary to
Speaker 1: you because you can be a bit lack toast Tootsie.
Speaker 3: More than a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And serial killers are just nobody's idea of fun
Speaker 1: except people who do podcasts. Apparently, people who do podcast
Speaker 1: there's a lot of podcasts about serial killers.
Speaker 3: That's true. Yeah, you know, I grew up not in
Speaker 3: the same era, contrary to popular belief about my age,
Speaker 3: but I grew up about twenty five miles from where
Speaker 3: ed Gean slaughtered people and offered Hitchcock based psycho on
Speaker 3: ed Gar ed.
Speaker 1: Gean really to ddress up as his mom and stuff.
Speaker 1: You spit out your loss.
Speaker 3: And I am because I'm getting ready to talk about joy,
Speaker 3: so I don't want to get the los Andes stuck
Speaker 3: on the microphone.
Speaker 2: See when you were playing Mimi. I remember when you
Speaker 2: were playing Mimi on the Drew Carey Show.
Speaker 1: I realized, now, it's rare that I've seen you not
Speaker 1: drinking with a straw, because you always have to have
Speaker 1: a straw.
Speaker 2: When you had that makeup on I remember that, do
Speaker 2: you remember?
Speaker 1: Yes, Obviously you'd be like, you'd be talking, talking, and
Speaker 1: then you'd go.
Speaker 2: And your little straw.
Speaker 1: Anyway, so you grew up next to Edgen. The siou
Speaker 1: Kella that was based on ed.
Speaker 3: Gen, but surprisingly with a positive attitude, which eventually now
Speaker 3: you tell me, here's why we wrote that book. Because
Speaker 3: I would go places after I you know, when I
Speaker 3: was on the Drew Carrey Show and after and people
Speaker 3: would say, you're on TV, I'd love to see your hosts.
Speaker 1: Well, like people that we're in your neighborhood and stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just everywhere everywhere. People who didn't and people would
Speaker 1: say things like are you that movie star? And I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a TV whore, completely different.
Speaker 2: It's not really, it's kind of the same.
Speaker 3: It is the same. But I wrote that book with
Speaker 3: Cindy because I really believe that we are all more
Speaker 3: alike than different. You know, I empty the litter box
Speaker 3: one turd at a time, just like everybody else.
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing. I never empty the letter box.
Speaker 3: I don't even have a cat.
Speaker 1: Oh well, see that, you win. But if I had
Speaker 1: a cat, do you know if a cat thought you
Speaker 1: did have a cat?
Speaker 3: Oh? You know there's some thing about pets is they
Speaker 3: all die?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it's terrifying.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing. Joy, I've thought about it a lot, right, Okay,
Speaker 3: because I had joy when I came and saw you
Speaker 3: at the Brea Improv because I hadn't seen you in
Speaker 3: maybe four or five years or five years, and there
Speaker 3: you were in your full comic glory, and you were
Speaker 3: so funny and you it reminded me of all the
Speaker 3: good times that we had on the Carry Show.
Speaker 1: We did have good time, we did, you and I. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't. It wasn't a good time there.
Speaker 2: All the time.
Speaker 3: No, but you and I always said a good time
Speaker 3: riding around in the cart going yeah, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 3: making noises.
Speaker 1: We would make noises because we had these little golf
Speaker 1: carts and we would ride around the Warner Brothers law
Speaker 1: and go to Western Town.
Speaker 2: Yes at the back.
Speaker 1: Why did we go with the We used to get
Speaker 1: frozen yogurt and go for a run in the car.
Speaker 2: I think we were bored. I think we were bored too.
Speaker 1: I think I was bored because all I did on
Speaker 1: the Drew k Show every now and again is I'd
Speaker 1: run on and go gettio fired and then maybe that's enough.
Speaker 1: Not that pen, yeah you need the the wrong pen,
Speaker 1: but that they would do occasionally things like that, and
Speaker 1: you would do a lot more work than me.
Speaker 2: But you were nicest to me on that show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that. I My heritage is Scottish, Yeah,
Speaker 3: for sure. Well Kenny Kenny, Kenny's Irish. I think I
Speaker 3: think pro Irish. Actually, you know, one of my cousins
Speaker 3: traced it all the way back through Ethel the Acrobat,
Speaker 3: who evidently married into our family. Wasn't one of my
Speaker 3: personal relatives.
Speaker 2: But this was her name, the acrobat.
Speaker 3: Ethel the Acrobat was how she was builled.
Speaker 1: Right, and and she she was in vaudeville.
Speaker 3: Evidently there was a picture of her sitting on her
Speaker 3: husband's shoulder with her hand in the air right. And
Speaker 3: then there was a third guy in the act. I
Speaker 3: don't know if he swallowed swords or fire.
Speaker 1: Right, So it was some weird manajatoire with Ethel her
Speaker 1: husband and the sword swaller.
Speaker 3: She was an acrobats. Anyway, my cousin, one of my cousins,
Speaker 3: traced it all the way back. We're sort of from
Speaker 3: that hinterland of Scotland and Ireland. Oh yeah, it was
Speaker 3: McKinney and it was. But my family could never stand
Speaker 3: anyone place, so they they all migrated towards the potatoes
Speaker 3: and to Ireland and then and then to New York
Speaker 3: and then and Canada, which is why I gave everybody.
Speaker 3: My aunt wanted to know how much Native American we
Speaker 3: were so she could gamble at the casinos. So I
Speaker 3: gave everybody that the DNA spit in the tube thing,
Speaker 3: it was one percent for her.
Speaker 2: You're one, are you one percent?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I was zero.
Speaker 3: Just it ended with her. But so she was angry.
Speaker 3: And she also found out that we're mostly we're French
Speaker 3: and Irish. But she found out when after spitting in
Speaker 3: the test tube that she was twenty one percent English
Speaker 3: and only sixteen percent Irish, and it made her very
Speaker 3: angry because you know how the Irish feel about the English.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would you'd be conflicted to find out you're
Speaker 1: somebody that you're not that fond of.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I got that in my own life when I
Speaker 2: was drinking. I found out I.
Speaker 1: Was somebody It's not that bond though, and that's why
Speaker 1: I had to get sober. You're a person who I
Speaker 1: think of is you're not an alcoholic or anything, but
Speaker 1: you're someone who I think of as being weirdly. And
Speaker 1: I hope you don't take this the wrong way, because
Speaker 1: I mean it's a compliment. Sober you seem to me
Speaker 1: someone who has gone through difficulties personally, emotionally maybe and
Speaker 1: kind of come out the other side into joy. Well,
Speaker 1: certainly it's a clarity.
Speaker 3: You see how I'm I keep trying to bring a back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's good you're keeping it on message, but
Speaker 1: I tend not to do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's okay. I agree with Do I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, surviving the Midwest and yeah.
Speaker 2: Many people are very happy and comfortable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, if I went back there, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't I mean one time, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: I was on your doing your radio thing, and you
Speaker 3: asked me if I had any interest in moving back
Speaker 3: to where I was from, and I said no. But also,
Speaker 3: you know, they have snow up beyond your hairline there,
Speaker 3: and I just I can't do that anymore. But I
Speaker 3: think that everybody gets a chance to survive their childhood.
Speaker 2: And was your childhood difficulty you think I.
Speaker 3: Think it was. You know, I had a good time.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to fling the word joy out so often,
Speaker 3: but you know, I was an only child and I
Speaker 3: still am.
Speaker 2: And you know, you think there's any chance that you
Speaker 2: guessing anything.
Speaker 3: I don't know. You know, my mother was adopted, so
Speaker 3: that was why we did all the spin like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that didn't help anyway. There were no other children. I
Speaker 3: already knew that. But my father was ill, and he
Speaker 3: was when you were a kid, when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: from the time I was five until I was fifteen
Speaker 3: when he died. And you know, I come from that
Speaker 3: weird Irish family that everyone neglected to tell me that
Speaker 3: he was dying. And then one day I came home
Speaker 3: and he was dead, and I was like, oh, it
Speaker 3: was so surprising, but it was wrong. He had emphysema.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, he had bronchial asthma. But then he had emphysema,
Speaker 3: and of course everybody smoked, and I remember being a
Speaker 3: kid saying I'm never going to smoke, and then promptly
Speaker 3: after he died, I began smoking. Because we're so self destructive.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's also you're probably in a law
Speaker 1: of grief because you know, it's difficult, particularly if you
Speaker 1: come from the kind of background that we kind of
Speaker 1: both come from. Then grief is it's like I it's
Speaker 1: very bad, and then you stop, and that's and I don't.
Speaker 1: It's never been my experience. I mean, I was still
Speaker 1: grieving about my parents dying, and it's years and years
Speaker 1: and years ago. It never goes away, it just becomes different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny.
Speaker 3: I think that this country is just not very good
Speaker 3: with grief, and I know that my family in particular
Speaker 3: wasn't because my father died and then we didn't mention
Speaker 3: him again. Yeah for twenty twenty five years.
Speaker 2: That's kind of like the mafia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's well, that's like the healthy Yeah, as though
Speaker 1: I mean he's like, you have the wake and then
Speaker 1: it's done, and then you move on.
Speaker 3: Then you move on. Yeah, And I think you know,
Speaker 3: one time I had a massage, one of these deep
Speaker 3: tissue massages after I moved to New York.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, you didn't get that, No.
Speaker 3: Not in the Midwest, and you probably could now though
Speaker 3: you could would involve beer and geez. I imagine.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I had a few serial killers, but I had this,
Speaker 3: and I didn't realize how armored I was until I
Speaker 3: had that deep tissue massage. It's like so painful and
Speaker 3: the release of I think I was just clenched since
Speaker 3: my father died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because were you close to your dad?
Speaker 3: I was. My mother was an unusual woman, and I
Speaker 3: think that my father and I were always like, oh,
Speaker 3: she's kind of different. Okay, in what way was she unusually?
Speaker 3: She was adopted, right, but I mean a lot of
Speaker 3: people are on her birth certificate when she was born.
Speaker 3: She was born one year after they stopped putting the
Speaker 3: word Bastard on birth certificates.
Speaker 1: I'd written after my name.
Speaker 3: I thought that was your middle name, Craig Bastard ferguson stuff.
Speaker 3: I like podcasts because you can say things like bastard.
Speaker 2: You can't say bastard. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So my mother never believed that she was loved ah,
Speaker 3: and that's something that she hung onto all her life.
Speaker 3: You know, you tell yourself these stories to get by
Speaker 3: in life. And I think that any clarity that you
Speaker 3: see in me is because I told myself lots of stories, like,
Speaker 3: you know, you're not attractive, you're not smart, you're not funny,
Speaker 3: you're not you know, all the not just fill in
Speaker 3: the blank. And then because I sort of got that
Speaker 3: from my mother. And then, you know, one day in
Speaker 3: the Midwest. I've cleaned this up a little bit, but
Speaker 3: it's called poop or Get off the Pot. Well, in
Speaker 3: the book, we wrote poop or Get Off the Pot
Speaker 3: about how you feel about yourself. And you know, one
Speaker 3: day I thought, oh, I am brilliantly funny. And after
Speaker 3: Drew Carry's show, you know, I own my own home,
Speaker 3: I'm worth some money. Anybody would be lucky to have me.
Speaker 2: You're fabulously wealthy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you're flous fabulous. Yeah I'm not. One time
Speaker 3: I said I want to be Drew Carrey wealthy and
Speaker 3: he said, well, you're Kathy Kidney wealthy, and I go,
Speaker 3: I am, but it's not the same, trust me. But
Speaker 3: I made the decision that I was pretty good. And
Speaker 3: you know, there's a grace that comes from letting go
Speaker 3: of the pain of your childhood and moving forward.
Speaker 1: Word, was there any formal kind of ceremony or program
Speaker 1: or system that you went through to move from the
Speaker 1: pain in your childhood? Was kind of like it because
Speaker 1: there wasn't a rehab or anything like that, right, No, I.
Speaker 3: Mean there was alcohol, drugs.
Speaker 2: Did you you did all that then, Candy?
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, I mean I was in a lot
Speaker 3: of pain. Like I said, they neglected to tell me
Speaker 3: that my father was going to die, so it was
Speaker 3: very shocking. And then the thing, I'd always wanted to travel,
Speaker 3: and so I just slowly jocking myself in the position
Speaker 3: so that I could travel.
Speaker 2: And that's what you became an actress. And that was
Speaker 2: an accident though that wasn't because I don't really believe
Speaker 2: in accidents like that.
Speaker 3: You tell me, well, that's that's the point, and here's
Speaker 3: here's the point. But as we slide slide in towards joy,
Speaker 3: you know, the only skills I had when I was
Speaker 3: in Wisconsin was I was a bartender, right, and dirt
Speaker 3: bag bar that used to be called Cora Nimchek's Long Branch.
Speaker 3: It wreaked a vomit from lumberjacks who had puked there
Speaker 3: back in eighteen thirty nine, and it just soaked in.
Speaker 3: So I was eighteen and I was, you know, the
Speaker 3: bartender there right. And my other skill I went to
Speaker 3: college and I put myself through college as a carpenter
Speaker 3: in the scene shop.
Speaker 2: Wow, I don't know, I've never seen you.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm good at carpentry. Okay, I'm good with power tools.
Speaker 3: So when I was in college, these are my two
Speaker 3: skills bartending. And I'm not talking about can you make
Speaker 3: me a Manhattan? I'm talking about, you know, whiskey beer
Speaker 3: and a shot of Schnops's.
Speaker 2: Content is Everything else is just conversation.
Speaker 3: Like I was the head bartender for weddings at Bernard's
Speaker 3: Supper Club and they'd say, what do you got? And
Speaker 3: I go, I got beer, I got brandy, I got squirked,
Speaker 3: and I got brandy and squirked and they go, Oliver
Speaker 3: brandy and.
Speaker 2: Can you have a square on his own? I'm asking
Speaker 2: for a friend.
Speaker 3: It's a grapefruit. Oh okay, it's a very prominent grapefruit.
Speaker 3: So I thought it was so when I left there
Speaker 3: and I got a free ride out to Manhattan with
Speaker 3: the self esteem below sea level and these two skills
Speaker 3: of the carpenter I wanted in the scene show.
Speaker 2: How did you get a free How did you get?
Speaker 2: From Steven's point?
Speaker 3: I was friends with the woman who was a dance
Speaker 3: teacher at the university, and she got a job teaching
Speaker 3: at Amherst College. So she needed somebody to drive her
Speaker 3: twenty six foot U haul from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. And
Speaker 3: I had been driving this library show waggon around with
Speaker 3: these vivid pictures on it, driving around to the smaller towns,
Speaker 3: putting on plays because I was in the technical I
Speaker 3: was a tech director.
Speaker 2: Oh right, so you have no yeah.
Speaker 3: No intention of acting whatsoever. So I drive her truck
Speaker 3: out and we get out to New York and there's
Speaker 3: a blackout immediately.
Speaker 2: A black in New York.
Speaker 1: I think I remember that that was in the eighties, yo,
Speaker 1: back in the ages. A few black in New York
Speaker 1: in the age, but I think I think there might
Speaker 1: have been a city wide one.
Speaker 3: It went, this was city wide. And you know, I'm
Speaker 3: that person who's had so many because again, my self
Speaker 3: esteem was so low. I didn't think I could get
Speaker 3: a job as a bartender in Manhattan. I didn't think
Speaker 3: I was attractive enough. And besides, I know how to
Speaker 3: make anything other than baron schnapps. You know, So I
Speaker 3: had jobs that really, there's the book. You know, I
Speaker 3: was living for a crippled X Vogue model.
Speaker 2: Well, you like that sounds like a Bay Davis movie.
Speaker 3: It was. It was awful, and I worked for art
Speaker 3: carved diamond and class rings.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the Betty Davis movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm not sure, you really don't want any more
Speaker 3: details on And then I'm you know, that was it?
Speaker 3: Live in for a crippled X Vogue bedridden x Vogue model?
Speaker 3: To you, No, she was bed ridden, I mean to her. No, No,
Speaker 3: I thought about taking her life. It's the closest I
Speaker 3: hope I ever come to taking anyone's life. Why because
Speaker 3: I didn't think I deserved a better job.
Speaker 2: Why did you take the job killing her?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Because she had ten pillows behind her head and she
Speaker 3: go every night I go, okay, good night, I go
Speaker 3: to bed. Three o'clock in the morning, she go catty, catty,
Speaker 3: Cathy Okay, can you flatten the yellow pillow? Can you
Speaker 3: roll the pink pillow? Can you plump the blue pillow?
Speaker 3: Every night? Every night? And after about a month and
Speaker 3: a half, you know, I stood there with that yellow pillow,
Speaker 3: just shaking like because the part I'm leaving out all
Speaker 3: this stuff. I mean, I'm not always prone to murder.
Speaker 2: But no, I've never discussed murder with you at all.
Speaker 3: No. She she had a thirteen year old daughter whose
Speaker 3: bed butted into the side of her hospital bed. She
Speaker 3: believed her daughter was the reincarnation of Judy Garland, and
Speaker 3: she would torture the daughter. You know, I have to
Speaker 3: go to the bathroom. I have to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: That's all. I'm going to leave it until I had
Speaker 3: to get up and handle it. The woman's bed ridden. Wait,
Speaker 3: the daughter didn't help her go to the bathroom. She did,
Speaker 3: but she was thirteen. Yeah, she was tired. It was
Speaker 3: the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: What happened to the daughter, is she? Okay, you don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe you do know? This is getting too bad? Is
Speaker 2: again litigious?
Speaker 3: Yes, litigious. They did run ent her on the street
Speaker 3: one time after I left there, you know, and her
Speaker 3: mother had finally passed away. She would medicate herself with dramamine,
Speaker 3: which eventually will kill you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you won't feel nauseous.
Speaker 3: You know, you know you don't, or you won't be busy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Craig ferguson Fancy Rascals stand up to her continues
Speaker 1: this fall. For tickets, go to the Craig Bergson Show
Speaker 1: dot com slash tour see you on the road.
Speaker 3: This was my first job when I moved to New York.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a dark Sorry, we took a little dark gitur,
Speaker 1: but you did when you were there, and then so
Speaker 1: you were working as the then this Betty Davis movie,
Speaker 1: and then you get a job as about ten.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: No, I never I never bartended, no because I didn't
Speaker 3: think I was attractive enough. I was the receptionist for
Speaker 3: art carved diamond and class rings and I was hungover.
Speaker 3: I had one outfit. It was pink. I didn't have
Speaker 3: a lot of clothes, and I sat behind bulletproof glass
Speaker 3: and there was a button underneath my desk that if
Speaker 3: someone came to rob it, because the vault was there
Speaker 3: every day, I'd fall asleep, jerk set that thing off
Speaker 3: and then wait and nobody ever came. That was the
Speaker 3: scariest part. Yeah, that was a good job. Then I
Speaker 3: worked at the American Psychiatric Association.
Speaker 2: Okay what it was a.
Speaker 3: New York County district brand, and I was the assistant
Speaker 3: membership director and it went something like this. It was
Speaker 3: just my friend Cindy Rats, laughing about she's all woman,
Speaker 3: along with Peggy Resky. We're in a tiny little room
Speaker 3: in the middle of Manhattan. And the phone would ring
Speaker 3: and I would say American Psychiatric Association, which I did
Speaker 3: in my sleep for years after that, and someone would go,
Speaker 3: I need to talk to a psychiatrist. They have to
Speaker 3: be on the Upper east Side, they have to have
Speaker 3: blonde hair. They can only handle people who get seasick
Speaker 3: and who are angry over something that happened in their childhood.
Speaker 3: And I go, please hold, and I go, Cindy, it's
Speaker 3: for you, and she goes, this is Cindy, and then
Speaker 3: she go, oh okay, and they go through could you hold?
Speaker 2: And it was your turn?
Speaker 3: And I go, it was your turn?
Speaker 2: It was your And would you would do you would
Speaker 2: kinsle people on the on the phone.
Speaker 3: We referred people to psychiatrists, which is why I've never
Speaker 3: seen one. I have therapist.
Speaker 2: What's the difference. Let's finally put this to rest.
Speaker 3: Can give you drugs, right, And.
Speaker 1: I've certainly then in that case, I've talked to a lot.
Speaker 1: I just they weren't in offices.
Speaker 3: They were in and they're heavily, heavily trained. They go
Speaker 3: to school for years. A therapist you can pretty much
Speaker 3: right away under the internet and a degree.
Speaker 1: My therapist for a long time. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we've discussed. I think I can't remember. I don't go
Speaker 1: to therapy anymore. But when I did, she was a psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: She could give drugs. She just didn't give me any
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons why I don't see
Speaker 1: her anymore. Think, No, I don't. She never thought it
Speaker 1: was necessary. Did you ever take psychotropics or any of
Speaker 1: these things? Try to get yourself right?
Speaker 3: But somebody tried to put me on lithium or something
Speaker 3: like that one. Yes, it was ridiculous. Yeah, it didn't nothing.
Speaker 3: You know, I self medicated. And when I think about
Speaker 3: all the things that I did and took to not
Speaker 3: feel my grief, you know, to not feel about your dad,
Speaker 3: about my dad, you know about my belief from my
Speaker 3: mother that I was unlovable or you know, that that
Speaker 3: low self esteem thing. You know, It's just it's fascinating
Speaker 3: the things that we do did not feel our feelings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is remarkable.
Speaker 1: That's kind of why I wanted to do a podcast,
Speaker 1: fully enough, called Joy, because I think that there has
Speaker 1: been a tendency amongst in popular culture or people like
Speaker 1: us who talk about things to talk only about the
Speaker 1: negative emotions, which are which is valid, but that they're
Speaker 1: not the only ones that exist. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I wanted to talk to you so early
Speaker 1: on was because you're someone that very much lives in
Speaker 1: the light. But you're very you know, you're you're didactic
Speaker 1: about it, You're diligent about it, you're almost aggressive about
Speaker 1: making sure you're it's okay. And you you did that
Speaker 1: with me repeatedly when I was in the dark days
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Was on the Drew Carry Show and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, I can't go and see fucking Carry or
Speaker 1: fired one more times.
Speaker 2: Drive me up the fucking.
Speaker 1: Wall, and you would always make me laugh and you
Speaker 1: would cheer me up, which I've always been very grateful
Speaker 1: for but also impressed by because you do it to
Speaker 1: yourself too, don't.
Speaker 3: You I do you know I never talked about that book.
Speaker 3: I mean, we wrote that book a long time ago.
Speaker 3: But I love to travel. And Cindy had lost her
Speaker 3: job and was sitting at home on the couch and
Speaker 3: I would call and she would say, welcome to Walmart.
Speaker 3: How may I help you? She was practicing and the
Speaker 3: rest of the time she was eating potato chips. And
Speaker 3: I dragged her on this trip to Prague, which we'd plan.
Speaker 3: It was early December and we got there.
Speaker 2: The producer of the show is from very near Prague.
Speaker 3: Really, I love the Prague.
Speaker 2: Tomas's he's from the Czech Republic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I loved it. I had a fantastic, fabulous stories
Speaker 3: about it later.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, tell us now what happened in Prague?
Speaker 3: We haven't in Prague was well, we were sitting in
Speaker 3: this gorgeous hotel looking out over the Charles River, looking
Speaker 3: at the castle.
Speaker 2: That was the name I was going to use if
Speaker 2: I became a mophe star. What Charles River?
Speaker 3: Really? My stripper name is public Storage.
Speaker 2: Do you know?
Speaker 1: Do you know when I was a kid, I've never
Speaker 1: told anyone that except Megan this before. When I was
Speaker 1: a kid, when I was about ten years old. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be called Al Shapiro. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: an American and I wanted my name to be Al Shapiro.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to have leather wristbands and a leather vest.
Speaker 2: And long hair. Yeah, I met friends.
Speaker 1: About Shapiro and I never want to be on Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. That's stranger You get in your head,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Anyway, So you're in Charles Ver.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking out the castle. It's all lit, you know.
Speaker 3: And before I left, I was like, my foot would
Speaker 3: get hot at night and I was like quiet, and
Speaker 3: I've kicked out the covers and I look, so what's
Speaker 3: just one foot? So I'm like, what's this all about?
Speaker 3: So I look it up and it says now that
Speaker 3: you're a crone, you want to take yourself away from
Speaker 3: your family so you don't harm them.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what's this?
Speaker 1: Yeah online, and I go and you have to get
Speaker 1: away from your family, yeah.
Speaker 3: And this is yeah, I guess it was supposed to
Speaker 3: me it was all about menopause, so I I guess,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I don't know. But so I
Speaker 3: get to Prague and I say to Cindy, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be the crone in the corner.
Speaker 3: You know, men are the king of their their house.
Speaker 3: I go, why can't we be the queen? Why can't
Speaker 3: we be queens and wear crowns? And through that entire
Speaker 3: trip through Prague, we every night, I always have this
Speaker 3: New Year's Eve party, yes, and we say what do
Speaker 3: you want to keep that's still working for you? And
Speaker 3: what do you want to let go that isn't good?
Speaker 3: And so every night sometimes we had goose and champagne,
Speaker 3: and sometimes just.
Speaker 2: You always have goose and chapel.
Speaker 3: I love goose mit champagne. And it was Prague, you know,
Speaker 3: and sometimes we just have you know, beer and bread, right,
Speaker 3: And we would do this every night. And Cindy said,
Speaker 3: I wish that I was the girl that i'd been
Speaker 3: when I was eighteen and I had that courage and
Speaker 3: I sold my bike and I took that money and
Speaker 3: I moved to New York. And I've known her so
Speaker 3: long that I could say, you still are, yes, that girl,
Speaker 3: you still have that courage, yes, and so and it's
Speaker 3: like you like I see you, but I see who
Speaker 3: you were when you were a kid, like I see someone,
Speaker 3: I go and I see what you the l Shapiro
Speaker 3: with the leather.
Speaker 2: Bands, wrists and long long hair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what. So we had this ceremony every
Speaker 3: night when we were in Prague where we would say
Speaker 3: what do you want to let go? And what I
Speaker 3: always want to let go is my low self esteem.
Speaker 3: I believe that I'm not enough. And what I always
Speaker 3: wanted to keep that's always always working for me is
Speaker 3: my sense of humor.
Speaker 2: Yes, which you always had.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen you go from and it's quite
Speaker 1: a remarkable thing. I've seen you like in frustration and
Speaker 1: anger and to be in tears, and it's one of
Speaker 1: the most satisfying things that I've been able to do
Speaker 1: in my life is that they will always be able
Speaker 1: to make you laugh and being able to remember when
Speaker 1: you were a cat that.
Speaker 3: Was Yes, I too, it was.
Speaker 2: It was bad and I was.
Speaker 3: Talking about it because it was so sad and it
Speaker 3: was I.
Speaker 1: Was still talking about that cat.
Speaker 3: My favorite when we don't sit in the makeup room
Speaker 3: and you would come in and go can we talk
Speaker 3: about me now? And go no, no, absolutely not. But
Speaker 3: you were you just you know you this the other
Speaker 3: day I just you're brilliantly funny and timeless, and that's
Speaker 3: what is so appealing about you. And that's why, even
Speaker 3: after not seeing you for five years, we could just
Speaker 3: sit down at a lunch club and just like you know.
Speaker 1: I think that's what happens when you're when you're actually
Speaker 1: friends with someone, but it's not show business friends, but
Speaker 1: when you're actually friends. It's kind of because I can't
Speaker 1: think of the last time we actually talked about work,
Speaker 1: like you know.
Speaker 2: But that being said, you're in Prague, Cindy.
Speaker 1: Ratz last, Yes, who's old woman as much as Peggy
Speaker 1: Risky is as much?
Speaker 2: And why did.
Speaker 1: You go with the Prague No no, wait, I always
Speaker 1: wanted to go no, no, no, hold on, you're not in Prague.
Speaker 1: I want to go back chronologically to get you through
Speaker 1: to the Drew Carey Show because that's where I met you. Right, So,
Speaker 1: you're in New York. You're working for this woman who
Speaker 1: you didn't kill statute limitations, and.
Speaker 3: And then I had psychiatricause, I had psychiatric associated so
Speaker 3: many jobs.
Speaker 1: And then so how come the acting then? Because does
Speaker 1: that when you did the rach Andephobia when you were
Speaker 1: in New York.
Speaker 3: Here's the point.
Speaker 2: That was a great movie.
Speaker 3: By the way, I loved that. I bought a Honda
Speaker 3: Civic with that money from that. And also I learned
Speaker 3: that spiders do not like lemon pledge. So if you
Speaker 3: want to keep the spiders away from you, just spray
Speaker 3: lemon pledge, like on the windowsill or something.
Speaker 2: Why don't they like lemon pledge?
Speaker 3: They just don't. But they wanted that big spider to
Speaker 3: walk a straight line, so they just sprayed pledge on either.
Speaker 1: Side of it, and the spider was like, oh, nowhere
Speaker 1: to go forward.
Speaker 3: Here's how my story escalates and brings me forward. Cindy
Speaker 3: Rat's laugh hated to work by herself, which is why
Speaker 3: I was at the American Psychiatric Association. It. She ended
Speaker 3: up going to WCBSTV, the broadcast center in Manhattan, and
Speaker 3: she hired me. I was the publicist for the Muppets
Speaker 3: for a while, and then they moved me into her
Speaker 3: I was a statistical typist, which was only funny because
Speaker 3: I still don't type numbers very well. And there were
Speaker 3: the three of us in one big room, and it
Speaker 3: was Cindy, me and a guy named Bill Sherwood, and
Speaker 3: we work for the heads of finance for WCBSTV. Okay
Speaker 3: and Bill Sherwood wrote a movie called Parting Glances.
Speaker 2: Oh I see where We're going now?
Speaker 3: And Cindy took her tax money and she said, we're
Speaker 3: going to quit our jobs and start teaching improvisation because
Speaker 3: one of the many things that someone told her she
Speaker 3: needed to do improvisation to be a good actor, but
Speaker 3: she hated to do it. She wouldn't do it by herself.
Speaker 3: So yeah, she made me go with her. And she
Speaker 3: tells a story that within ten minutes, everybody knew I
Speaker 3: was funny except for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was true.
Speaker 1: I think being funny is an interesting thing because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who think they're funny who are
Speaker 1: not funny at all. And there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are funny who don't think funny thoughts.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: They don't think in that kind of here's something that's funny,
Speaker 1: and like I don't think like that.
Speaker 2: Do you think you don't think like no, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, here's just just just funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just that I can't well if I am
Speaker 1: for you see, there are people who will say, well,
Speaker 1: he's not funny.
Speaker 2: And you go, well, not to you.
Speaker 3: You know that there was somebody who used to work
Speaker 3: with that couldn't understand you or else she was gary. No,
Speaker 3: maybe this was a woman that I think she was
Speaker 3: just flirting with you, because we'd got to lunch and
Speaker 3: she'd be there and then you'd say something and she'd go,
Speaker 3: what do you say? And I go, he said, he
Speaker 3: wants say some frozen yogurt, like I've never heard. I
Speaker 3: can't hear your accent, right, you just I just hear you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that that there was a time there in
Speaker 1: the nineties where I probably sounded more schoetician than I do.
Speaker 1: Not no, or it was fashionable to make fun of
Speaker 1: people's accents. But then Shrek came along and Scottish people
Speaker 1: became very attractive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that Shrek and all. So I ended
Speaker 3: up working with this guy, Bill Sherwood, who wrote this
Speaker 3: movie Parting Glances, Would You right, Yeah, which he put
Speaker 3: me in with my friend Steve bussemi right.
Speaker 2: He's also had a bit of a career. Let's be honest.
Speaker 3: I thought you were gonna say he's also all woman.
Speaker 2: He's not much of a woman.
Speaker 3: I love him. He's one of those people. He's a
Speaker 3: great guy who That's why I'm so happy to see you.
Speaker 3: There's just a couple of people in my life who
Speaker 3: I lost touch with that I cared about that. You
Speaker 3: were one and Steve Bussemi is the other one.
Speaker 1: So we were actually in Prague the whole time together.
Speaker 1: That's the weird thing. Steve and I were in Prague,
Speaker 1: you were and every night we would have different things
Speaker 1: on little grounds, a.
Speaker 3: Little gula, a little pillsner, whatever. So Steve, if you
Speaker 3: hear this, call me. I have the same phone number.
Speaker 3: And so I did that movie and an old friend
Speaker 3: from high school was a manager out here in LA
Speaker 3: and I came out and I started to get these jobs,
Speaker 3: but I didn't know how to act. I was baffled
Speaker 3: by the whole.
Speaker 1: They were really good acting. I think you do know
Speaker 1: how I think you were acting. I think you probably
Speaker 1: a lot of the acting because it's ten. I was
Speaker 1: a bartender as well. Yeah, I think certain ways of
Speaker 1: approach and bartending there's a certain personality that it works
Speaker 1: for a performer.
Speaker 2: Because I got my work.
Speaker 1: I started by being a bartender and somebody saw me
Speaker 1: the bar and said you should do this.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, see you remember for a nim Check's long branch, right,
Speaker 3: Quirky Cluck bought it, so it was the Cluck Stop.
Speaker 3: And I'm eighteen, and what I would get was old
Speaker 3: men would come in there. One time, an old man,
Speaker 3: to Carrie loved this story, offered me three dollars an
Speaker 3: hour to come to his house, his apartment, three dollars
Speaker 3: an hour.
Speaker 2: But is this just for sex?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but I had to wear a dress and
Speaker 3: pretend that I was there cleaning the apartment because the
Speaker 3: other women were so nosy, and so finally I just say, okay,
Speaker 3: what day, four o'clock, All right, I'll be there because
Speaker 3: I couldn't get rid of him.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You didn't go, though, No, No, but some.
Speaker 3: Reason three dollars and some reason Drew Carrey just thought
Speaker 3: that was the funniest story story.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's shocking and awful and funny at
Speaker 1: the same time.
Speaker 3: So that's the Midwest. So no, I never had any
Speaker 3: kind of So you.
Speaker 1: Didn't work as a three dollars an hour house cleaning prostitute,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the whole thrust of what I
Speaker 1: was trying to get to the bottom of.
Speaker 3: People thought my mother sent my cousin after I did
Speaker 3: move to Manhattan. My mother sent my cousin because she
Speaker 3: thought that I was living there as a prostitute or something.
Speaker 3: Is there anyone ever, even to this day that looks
Speaker 3: or acts less like a prostitute than me?
Speaker 2: You know this may shock you, but I'm no expert
Speaker 2: in this world. I don't know. I don't think. You
Speaker 2: don't seem to come across prostitutey to me.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that. You know that a string of
Speaker 3: unusual men did not hit on me. And I'm unusual,
Speaker 3: like Hasidic older Hasidic men and Greek deli workers. There's
Speaker 3: like it's like somebody put a sign on my back
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no I survived.
Speaker 1: If all these unusual men are hit on you, yeah,
Speaker 1: didn't that at least in some way help yourself.
Speaker 2: Esteem a little bit?
Speaker 3: Oh god, no, I mean really, Oh no, you know
Speaker 3: how like they go, you know how in Tutsi and
Speaker 3: doesn't hoffen He says, so I have a little bit
Speaker 3: of a mustache problem. And she said, well, some men
Speaker 3: like that, and he he says, well, I don't like
Speaker 3: men that like that. That's like I don't you know,
Speaker 3: seventy five year old hasidic man. No, that's not my thing. No,
Speaker 3: it didn't, none of it. Also, when you when you
Speaker 3: make that firm decision that you are not good enough
Speaker 3: and yes, I understand. And actually, and here's what happened.
Speaker 3: Here's how it broke. Because I always had these voices
Speaker 3: that were so Academy Award winning abusive. You know, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, you're this or that, and.
Speaker 2: I'm the pillow. Yes, yes, I'm ye.
Speaker 3: So I was on this TV show, a guest star
Speaker 3: on a TV show, Okay with Seinfeldt, And I was
Speaker 3: on that show and I felt very kind of abused
Speaker 3: on that show. And when I left there, as I
Speaker 3: was driving home, this was before Drew Carrey, you know,
Speaker 3: I thought, oh my god, you're so you're not funny
Speaker 3: and everybody knows it, and you're stupid and you're ugly.
Speaker 3: And I said to myself, i'm driving, can you leave
Speaker 3: me alone for ten minutes till I get home, you know.
Speaker 3: And I got home and I took off my clothes
Speaker 3: and I got my kitchen timer and I laid down
Speaker 3: spread eagle on my bed and I put that kitchen
Speaker 3: timer on for ten minutes, and I said to that
Speaker 3: negative voice, if you could take me down, do it go.
Speaker 3: And it was like, oh, you're fat, you're ugly, you're stupid,
Speaker 3: you're not funny, and the cats don't like you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and if you got another cat, that cat wouldn't like
Speaker 3: you either, And and I go, is that the best
Speaker 3: you can do? Really? Because it's not good enough? And
Speaker 3: if you don't have anything good to say to me,
Speaker 3: then don't say anything at all. I've had this grace period.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that in a time of crisis, that
Speaker 3: voice doesn't come back and go hey, and I go no, No.
Speaker 3: The recovery for me is that I only hear it
Speaker 3: for like a minute and then it goes, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I can't say anything mean anymore. That was the start
Speaker 3: of it for me. Really. So I owe Jerry Seinfeld
Speaker 3: and that other guy you know that was on the show.
Speaker 3: I owe them a lot. If they hadn't been kind
Speaker 3: of mean to me.
Speaker 2: Is that what it was? They were mean to you?
Speaker 3: You know, there were the top of the heap at
Speaker 3: that time. You know, I was nothing. I was the
Speaker 3: woman at the handicapped spot. You know that I was
Speaker 3: the blood that you know, I just talked, it's a
Speaker 3: handicap with that. So, but that was a defining moment
Speaker 3: for me, and since that moment, I've just I have
Speaker 3: such acceptance of myself and ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 3: people around me, which is why we're back to joy
Speaker 3: seeing you. I think joy is one of those it's
Speaker 3: a burst of an emotion, and that if you lived
Speaker 3: in joy all the time, it would be like driving
Speaker 3: around with your foot down with the gas pedal shoved
Speaker 3: all the way to the floor, and it would be
Speaker 3: burn you out. And happiness. So I think about these.
Speaker 3: I think about joy and happiness and the one that's
Speaker 3: most important to me, which is contentment.
Speaker 1: Okay, and apathia. They used to call it what they
Speaker 1: called apatheia sense of serenity, maybe serenity.
Speaker 3: I like contentment. And have you ever heard I know
Speaker 3: you've heard this. You know there's that saying God never
Speaker 3: closes one door without opening another. And then somebody added,
Speaker 3: but it's really a bitch waiting in the hallway, And
Speaker 3: I have added, but if you can figure out how
Speaker 3: to do it with grace and humor, you will have
Speaker 3: accomplished something. Because we spend most of our time waiting
Speaker 3: in the hallway. Yeah, and that's where the contentment comes in.
Speaker 3: And happiness for me is something like right now, I
Speaker 3: decided I wanted to sew these zipper bags, which is
Speaker 3: only noteworthy because I don't know how to sew. So
Speaker 3: I taught myself how to sew it.
Speaker 2: Your business for you zipper bags.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because I'm broke, and yeah no, I just
Speaker 3: I collect fabric and every once in a while because
Speaker 3: you feel like you have to do something with it.
Speaker 3: So I'm sewing making these zipper bags, and I feel
Speaker 3: I'm happy when I finally after watching fifteen YouTube videos, yeah,
Speaker 3: I make one.
Speaker 1: And Megan's thing right now is crocheting hats. See yeah,
Speaker 1: I see. It's like we have no kidding you. There's everybody.
Speaker 1: You'll be getting a hat, good crocheted hat.
Speaker 3: I did crouche in knit. But it's southern California. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's no reason.
Speaker 1: That doesn't matter that one coming your way. There's tons
Speaker 1: of them coming.
Speaker 3: But that's happy to me. An accomplishment, accomplishing something I'm trying, or.
Speaker 2: I think that's creativity there, being creative.
Speaker 3: And living a creative lifestyle, whether I'm acting or writing.
Speaker 3: The next great American novel just you know this, Oh,
Speaker 3: this bottle of water looks nicer on the shelf. Oh
Speaker 3: there you go, right, you know, And that it's the
Speaker 3: contentment and the contentment And here's the key is gratitude based.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's right. I think that gratitude is
Speaker 1: the silver bullet. If you can somehow get to a
Speaker 1: position of gratitude, then you're gonna be all right. But
Speaker 1: it's hard, you know, it's I mean some people. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I wrestle with it. I don't wrestle with
Speaker 1: gratitude so much because I've got a lot to be
Speaker 1: grateful for. But I can imagine, you know, there are
Speaker 1: some people. I hear the stories and I go, how
Speaker 1: how do you find gratitude there? The story is so awful.
Speaker 1: And the truth is they find it somehow, or they don't.
Speaker 1: You're you're not talking to them, you know, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's like they're not around you
Speaker 1: have It's essential. And I think I thinks, and we've
Speaker 1: talked about this quite a bit as well, that when
Speaker 1: people say, when did you go over your ABC? When
Speaker 1: did you go over your fear or your when did
Speaker 1: you realize it was okay, or my favorite, when did
Speaker 1: you realize you had made it in show business? And
Speaker 1: you go, if you can use a phrase like made
Speaker 1: it in show business, you know fucking nothing about show business.
Speaker 1: Nobody makes it in show business forever, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like what you did is you've had to run
Speaker 1: a good luck enjoy it. It's gratitude, yeah, because it
Speaker 1: is an odd thing that. So no, in your life,
Speaker 1: where are you at? You're still doing the improv stuff
Speaker 1: with those guys?
Speaker 3: I guess not. You know, I think that if I'd
Speaker 3: have known that we did some big show in Vegas
Speaker 3: and it.
Speaker 2: Was you, Drew and Colin and well Ryan.
Speaker 3: Plan was off and on the road, but Ryan, Greg Proops, Greg,
Speaker 3: Jeff Davis right and assorted other people that would fill in.
Speaker 3: But you know, we had some big, fabulous show in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas and then that was sort of sort of it.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't Yeah, who's lane?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: Anybody? Is that what they were calling that?
Speaker 3: Well, no, no, we couldn't call it that be cause
Speaker 3: that was litigious. We've done that. So it was Drew
Speaker 3: whose line was that it was Drew Carrey and provo stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's right, and so you.
Speaker 2: Know that was great.
Speaker 3: In fact, I was watching the news this morning twenty
Speaker 3: years ago, this month or something, Shock and Awe, the
Speaker 3: war in Iraq, and when yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: I didn't find out TI later I was the first
Speaker 3: woman entertainer in Iraq after Shock and Awe, and I didn't,
Speaker 3: you know, I went, I love the USO. I just yeah,
Speaker 3: they're amazing, so important. And then I went some other place.
Speaker 3: I went to Saudi Arabia, did much and then you
Speaker 3: and I went to the Persian Gulf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bahrain. Remember that night with the sailors.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that was one of the worst and
Speaker 1: weirdest shows in my life.
Speaker 2: We had.
Speaker 1: We did a show. We got to Bahrain, we were
Speaker 1: jet lagged. We're doing a show for the us SO
Speaker 1: and they said, actually, there's been a change of plans.
Speaker 1: All the American servicemen are not being this all leave
Speaker 1: his cancels. All we've got is an Australian mind sweeper
Speaker 1: with three hundred drunken Australian sailors who have no fucking
Speaker 1: idea who you are.
Speaker 3: They've been out to see for six months. All they
Speaker 3: wanted to do is drink drink and sing, drink and sing.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. I've never bowed so badly. You like you made
Speaker 2: me you.
Speaker 3: I got up. I mean, I'm not even gonna stand up.
Speaker 3: I get up and then go take off your blouse.
Speaker 2: Take off your blouse.
Speaker 3: And I go, no, you, and he did, and I
Speaker 3: got to be fair.
Speaker 2: He did take off his blouse. I do remember.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to see you naked. But then then
Speaker 3: you had that that guy with you from your show.
Speaker 3: He had a guitar and he was saying, my sister
Speaker 3: is a lesbian, and everybody now my sister. Oh, they're sick.
Speaker 3: But this is my favorite part. You come up to
Speaker 3: me and you go, don't even say anything about me,
Speaker 3: just get up there. Because I was the MC. Just say,
Speaker 3: you know, ladies, Craig Ferguson, I'm gonna burn their hair off.
Speaker 3: You said to me, okay, And I get up and
Speaker 3: I go, Craig Ferguson and I get down and you're like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, and I mean, you're so funny. But they
Speaker 3: were so drunk and they were like and You're like, shit,
Speaker 3: good night, and you were gone.
Speaker 2: I think for like thirty seconds.
Speaker 3: I was like oh and I ran back up, but
Speaker 3: then every single one of them got in line for
Speaker 3: an autograph.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, it was the weirdest thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: but they were really dr I mean, god bless them,
Speaker 1: they were. Yeah, they'd been at sea for three months.
Speaker 1: And somebody told them. I think, actually they're commanding off.
Speaker 1: Just said, now you blacks have going to go out
Speaker 1: to this thing. The Americans have put it on an
Speaker 1: act great though, they'll be free bear.
Speaker 3: Actually think it was that guy who introduced us that
Speaker 3: sad it was, Yeah, I remember that. I think that
Speaker 3: was it. So no, you know, I had that children's
Speaker 3: character for a while. That was missus p profoundly fun
Speaker 3: because I was improving for children. This was so tender
Speaker 3: and sweet and clean. Now it's really fun. But I
Speaker 3: wanted to take that to a bigger audience, and so
Speaker 3: I go pitch it at Netflix. Can you say that on?
Speaker 3: And they come back and they go, we love her.
Speaker 3: She'd come back with them, and she wants but we
Speaker 3: already have an older woman doing a green room kind
Speaker 3: of shown. It was Julie Andrews. You can't really complain
Speaker 3: of Julian and then that doesn't last. But here's what
Speaker 3: I wanted to say, with gratitude, as with courage and bravery,
Speaker 3: you act as if until you really have it.
Speaker 2: That's very good.
Speaker 3: But also about gratitude, I've discovered you have to start
Speaker 3: really simple, Like in the morning, you wake up and
Speaker 3: you go, I'm awake, I'm alive. That's good. And then
Speaker 3: I have gratitude for my teeth. I'm always happy to
Speaker 3: have teeth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the noise they make when I los
Speaker 2: and bump against them.
Speaker 3: I'm going to get lodgs and jout again. And then
Speaker 3: I'm grateful that I have toothpaste and a toothbrush, hair
Speaker 3: and a brush. You know, I just start really simple
Speaker 3: because I think that I think it's so easy for
Speaker 3: us to say, oh my god, I'm so not enough.
Speaker 3: I'm not Craig Ferguson, I'm not Kathy Kinney, I'm not this.
Speaker 3: And the truth is, you know that we're more than enough,
Speaker 3: and that that we just have to take a look
Speaker 3: at it. It's so easy to say negative things and
Speaker 3: tell a negative story.
Speaker 2: But that's why everyone doesn't.
Speaker 3: That's why everybody does it. But that's why it just
Speaker 3: takes a little more work to be positive. And then
Speaker 3: once you got it, you got to share it.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting you say that because I think
Speaker 1: people are negative, because negative it makes you sound smart,
Speaker 1: like if you if you're negative, it makes you sound
Speaker 1: like you're a detective or something like, yeah, well I've
Speaker 1: noticed things and things.
Speaker 2: Aren't so good because I've noticed them, and you know.
Speaker 1: And I think if you, if you're happy, you kind
Speaker 1: of sound a little dumber.
Speaker 2: Like did you see my sweater? It's got a picture
Speaker 2: of a dog on it. But I think that's a lie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if you think, if you get really smart
Speaker 1: people they're not negative.
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, I think people. I think
Speaker 3: victims are glorified on TV a.
Speaker 2: Lot better a fatish right now.
Speaker 3: It's totally Midwest. I remember one time going home and
Speaker 3: visit my mom and we went to see some friend
Speaker 3: of hers. She said, oh, my grandma sat down on
Speaker 3: the toilet on Friday night and she couldn't get up
Speaker 3: and she sat there for two days.
Speaker 2: Or no trutal thing.
Speaker 3: It hurt. Yeah, And I was like, really, you know,
Speaker 3: so I mean do people want to you know, it
Speaker 3: sees stories. You see serial killers and you know, stuff
Speaker 3: the stories like that, but you don't see as many
Speaker 3: stories about I woke up, I had teeth, he's grateful.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: It's hard to make like a Netflix documentary about you know,
Speaker 1: somebody who was nice to everybody. It's like, you know
Speaker 1: the tender swindler, and you go, well, yeah, but most
Speaker 1: people are in tender aren't swindlers. So it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that it's everybody's bad. It's just like, here's the bad
Speaker 1: one and that's the story. And it's kind of I
Speaker 1: understand it. Everybody's got to do a thing. But for like,
Speaker 1: see you killers, we see what killers. Silence of the
Speaker 1: Lambs is a great movie, and they should have just
Speaker 1: stopped to that, just like that's it. It's fine cycle
Speaker 1: Silence of the Lambs. Maybe every now and again, make
Speaker 1: another one, but you don't have to keep glorifying these thickish,
Speaker 1: pig shit evil killers. It's it's crazy why they're awful,
Speaker 1: awful people.
Speaker 3: I had the news on and it was about the
Speaker 3: anniversary of this chow chilla kidnapping. Twenty six little kids
Speaker 3: on a bush and they were kidnapped and they were
Speaker 3: like four or five years old, and one of them
Speaker 3: was fourteen, you know, school bus and they kidnapped them,
Speaker 3: these three men from wealthy families, three young men, kidnapped
Speaker 3: them and buried them in a semi trailer under the ground.
Speaker 3: And then we're going to ask for like I don't
Speaker 3: know how much, millions of money or whatever. And then
Speaker 3: and here's the thing. They figured out how to get out.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: The one of the kids was fourteen, and they lifted
Speaker 3: him up and he got them all out of there,
Speaker 3: and those streets all yeah, and they were fine, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean physically find subscripes and bruises and things like that.
Speaker 3: But it's one of those things that you don't get
Speaker 3: over easily because it shakes your trust. Yeah, But don't
Speaker 3: you think that that same thing true for childhood shakes
Speaker 3: your trust a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think that, you.
Speaker 1: Know, part of the loss of innocence is realizing that
Speaker 1: everyone is flawed. I mean, my sister lenn, who you know,
Speaker 1: I think has a very nice take on this. She said,
Speaker 1: you get to blame your parents till you're thirty, and
Speaker 1: then after thirty.
Speaker 2: It's you and you go shit.
Speaker 1: But I think that's kind of it kind of has
Speaker 1: to be that at what point you're going to shake it,
Speaker 1: no matter how bad. It it's been I mean, and
Speaker 1: it has been bad, and some people.
Speaker 2: Just can't shake it. And I understand.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you have to or laying down a
Speaker 1: manifesto for anyone, but I know for myself that and
Speaker 1: also when you have kids, you realize that bad you're
Speaker 1: fucking up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no, God, this is going to leave a mark.
Speaker 2: I'm going to hear it.
Speaker 1: But that's in therapy, you know, it's for the most part.
Speaker 1: I think people try their best for the most part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some people just.
Speaker 3: I think I think everybody does ninety nine zero point
Speaker 3: nine percent. But you know, I was at some having
Speaker 3: like a physical, you know, healer thing, and she said,
Speaker 3: I want you to think back three lifetimes ago.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I was like, I mean, does she mean when I
Speaker 3: was Cleopatra or you know, somebody else, or does she
Speaker 3: mean I mean I could so clearly see my parents,
Speaker 3: their parents, the parents, you know, the things that they
Speaker 3: had suffered and what had been brought to me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I thought, oh my god, we just were so
Speaker 3: And again this brings me to that either you are
Speaker 3: lucky enough to have the grace to step away and
Speaker 3: get over your childhood or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: I think what I've noticed now there's a contemporary desire
Speaker 1: to inflict shame on people. I think that there's a
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't think like me, if you
Speaker 1: don't agree with me, if you don't share my veltan shaum.
Speaker 2: It's a German word for a worldview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the idea is to make someone I suppose
Speaker 1: for one.
Speaker 2: Of a better word.
Speaker 1: You call it canceled culture. But I don't think that's
Speaker 1: a real thing. I think what it is is shame.
Speaker 1: It's like to try and take the joy from somebody else,
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? It's like so if
Speaker 1: you are and people do it to themselves too, don't
Speaker 1: you think I do? You know that the idea of
Speaker 1: you know, I'm ashamed of what not succeeding, that's like,
Speaker 1: that's like being ashamed of every time you swing for
Speaker 1: a pitch and miss it. That's crazy. That's crazy to
Speaker 1: feel shame for failure. There's appropriate. What I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get I think is there are appropriate things to feel shame for,
Speaker 1: and there are inappropriate things to feel shamed for.
Speaker 2: Now I've got both, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: I do I also think you made me what popped
Speaker 3: into my head when you were saying that, which is
Speaker 3: why my face was scrunching up. I was raised United Methodist, Okay,
Speaker 3: you know, but I have so many friends. Actually, I
Speaker 3: just think of all of Ireland basically, yep. And I
Speaker 3: think that sometimes religion and religious beliefs can make getting
Speaker 3: over yourself hard.
Speaker 2: Gets in the way, for sure.
Speaker 1: And yet if you go to particularly if you're talking
Speaker 1: about Ireland or our background is mostly Christian based, and
Speaker 1: at the core of that was about forgiveness, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought the whole.
Speaker 3: Well, but you know, yeah, yeah, I think that the
Speaker 3: people are you know, it's again, they're individual people's within
Speaker 3: each ideology they're gonna it's such a personal journey. I've
Speaker 3: always liked the idea of I never really the whatever
Speaker 3: religion I was in, nobody talked that much about God
Speaker 3: or a higher power or any kind of divine being,
Speaker 3: and which is fascinating. So I think that at some
Speaker 3: point I finally thought, you know, I've got to make
Speaker 3: a decision what do I believe? And you know, I
Speaker 3: told you that story the other day that sometimes I
Speaker 3: cry and sometimes I don't about the little old woman
Speaker 3: I helped across the street in New York who told
Speaker 3: me that all of her friends had died and that
Speaker 3: the only person she had to talk to was God.
Speaker 3: And she talked to him like he was her friend.
Speaker 3: And did I think that that would bother him? And
Speaker 3: I said no, I think that's how you're supposed to
Speaker 3: to talk to your higher power, your divine being, your
Speaker 3: God or whatever. And she was so so sweet, you know,
Speaker 3: and that happens to everybody. I think all your friends
Speaker 3: just you get older and everybody passes away, and then
Speaker 3: you're just sitting there and how do you hang on
Speaker 3: to hope? And so there's a couple of things. I
Speaker 3: think that any success that I've had in my life
Speaker 3: is because I was a reader.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I just love to read and travel, read and travel,
Speaker 3: and I think it's so important to just widen your horizons.
Speaker 3: But as you grow older, being a lifelong learner and
Speaker 3: hanging on to your curiosity are the things that will
Speaker 3: keep you young. That's what my goal in life is
Speaker 3: one and trying to lead a European lifestyle. I see,
Speaker 3: because I'm sort of you know, I'm kind of driven.
Speaker 3: Got to accomplish this encomplishment. So I just want to
Speaker 3: How do I relax, stay in the moment and.
Speaker 1: Little coffees, clissants, maybe black turtlenecks and the occasional cigarette.
Speaker 3: What you do I wish? Yeah, I quit smoking. I
Speaker 3: allergic to all lactose and dairy and gluten intolerance. So
Speaker 3: my world has gotten really small. It's like, why even
Speaker 3: go to Paris. It's just gonna sit at an outdoor
Speaker 3: cafe and drink a glass of water and watch everybody
Speaker 3: walk by.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but you do get to set in Paris,
Speaker 1: and why does everybody walk by?
Speaker 3: Which is why I'm going. I told you I'm going
Speaker 3: to go on a cruise of the Netherlands where I
Speaker 3: will watch my frien Data eat and drink her away
Speaker 3: through the chocolate and beer factories of the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: Cheese and culips as well. And Heroin. I believe if
Speaker 2: you're announced with that Heroin, No, no way, not heroin Hashi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I would say the last. I haven't been
Speaker 3: in Amsterdam since I was teen and I bought a
Speaker 3: finger of hash that turned out to be shoe polish
Speaker 3: and I smoked it anyway, I was hard up.
Speaker 2: Kathy, you are of joy. That's why you were here,
Speaker 2: you too, you remain so. I wish we had longer talk.
Speaker 2: We do, but but not here. Good day, Good day,