Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
Speaker 1: It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
Speaker 1: it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
Speaker 1: on a stage, telling comedy words. Come and see me,
Speaker 1: buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
Speaker 1: see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
Speaker 1: I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
Speaker 1: you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
Speaker 1: The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
Speaker 1: end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
Speaker 1: the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
Speaker 1: available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
Speaker 1: or at your local outlet in your region. My name
Speaker 1: is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
Speaker 1: I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 1: My guest today is from Cleveland, Ohio, which is a
Speaker 1: city I am very.
Speaker 2: Fond of and I like the people of Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaker 1: And I suspect I will like Molly Carney very much.
Speaker 1: I know I do, and I think you will too.
Speaker 1: That was my note to you first, Molly, don't fuck up,
Speaker 1: but I mean that in life because you're a youngster.
Speaker 1: To me, you're a youngster. Way t you like twenty.
Speaker 3: That's well you're now you're being cute.
Speaker 2: I'm thirty four, four thirty four really?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: I was thirty four when I started on The Drew
Speaker 2: Carey Show.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you is because you're from Cleveland. I have a great
Speaker 1: deal of affection for the city of Cleveland because of
Speaker 1: being on the Drew Carey Show. Now, when Drew grew
Speaker 1: up in Cleveland, he said, it was pretty it was
Speaker 1: pretty tough at times. Is that your experience too, or
Speaker 1: were you from posh Cleveland?
Speaker 4: I was from West side of Cleveland, like in a suburb,
Speaker 4: but like ten minute.
Speaker 3: Drive to downtown.
Speaker 2: It's the suburb.
Speaker 4: Well, I grew up in North mp said, went to
Speaker 4: school in Rocky River. Family resides in Lakewood.
Speaker 2: Now Lakewood's posh, isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little fancy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, getting a lot of more. It's becoming more young crowd.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I see, I'm sixty two years old, so
Speaker 1: I don't really like young people. You know, you have
Speaker 1: to pretend you do. And I'm reasonable with my kids,
Speaker 1: and you seem like you seem like a decent human being.
Speaker 1: But I know they seem very literal to me. The
Speaker 1: young people, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they're just buying up the old houses
Speaker 4: and stuff, Yeah, fixing them.
Speaker 2: Are you doing that? Are you gentrifying your neighborhood? Where'd
Speaker 2: you live?
Speaker 4: I lived in Cleveland. I haven't lived in Cleveland since
Speaker 4: I was eighteen.
Speaker 2: You go straight to New York to get in Saturday
Speaker 2: Night Live? Was that the thing I did?
Speaker 3: I went to college in Ohio.
Speaker 2: Would you study?
Speaker 4: I studied whatever could get me out of there to
Speaker 4: the fastest.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I did theater.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: Never been in a play in my life.
Speaker 2: It's okay, that's good practice for when you're an actor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yea yeah, yeah, I'm like all right, no.
Speaker 4: But my thesis was like I was the only person
Speaker 4: with my They let me like really be specific with
Speaker 4: my major. So I was able to do a one
Speaker 4: one person show for my thesis.
Speaker 2: What was the one person show?
Speaker 3: It was just an hour of comedy.
Speaker 4: I would do stand up and then I would run
Speaker 4: off the sidelines and change and outfits while I had
Speaker 4: a video playing so that I could keep so I
Speaker 4: would do characters and then like five minutes to stand
Speaker 4: up and then a character and then a video and
Speaker 4: then a character.
Speaker 2: That's better than well, I do not.
Speaker 4: It was probably the most the best thing I've ever created.
Speaker 4: And I don't have any footage of it.
Speaker 2: Really, I think I have, Like what was it autobiographical?
Speaker 1: Was it because like if you're a kid, you're eighteen
Speaker 1: years old, Like, let's see who are the great comics
Speaker 1: who started early? Eddie Murphy was eighteen nineteen when he
Speaker 1: made Raw, I think. I mean it was like nuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it must have been twenty twenty or twenty one.
Speaker 4: And I came back from I did a semester and
Speaker 4: so of going abroad like the rich kids, I did
Speaker 4: a semester at Second City in.
Speaker 2: Chinaga, Chicago. That's abroad to Cleveland.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean that's like.
Speaker 5: There's like five hour drivers something.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I did a semester through Columbia College, the Art
Speaker 4: school that it's like anybody can get in there, right,
Speaker 4: But guys, they connected with Second City. So you did
Speaker 4: a semester, so you did like twenty credits or no,
Speaker 4: like fifteen credits of comedy writing.
Speaker 3: You comedy history, so you just study like Vaudeville and
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting to me because you come at it
Speaker 1: as an academic, then it's an academic approach to comedy.
Speaker 1: It's a completely completely different experience than my own, which
Speaker 1: was I went into comedy because it was like it
Speaker 1: was like being a real tar. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: it's not really a job anybody wants, but you get
Speaker 1: it and you go, yeah, well it's not that bad, and.
Speaker 3: You know, you get chunks of changing in there and
Speaker 3: you're like, oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, woah, wow, I made a sale.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's kind of exciting, and then you
Speaker 1: get your if you you know, if you do reasonably well,
Speaker 1: you get your photograph at bus stops and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of exactly like being a realtor.
Speaker 4: You're like, if you can hustle as much as you
Speaker 4: want to get to the next level kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But it interests me because a lot of the comics.
Speaker 1: In fact, the reason one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: like to talk to comics is not because I would
Speaker 1: wish trauma on anyone. But it seems to me that
Speaker 1: for a lot of comedians that I connect to and
Speaker 1: I like doing, comedy is the result of an early
Speaker 1: trauma or an ongoing trauma even Yeah, and they kind
Speaker 1: of they kind of filter it through some kind of
Speaker 1: rage or despair into comedic goal.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what I've always thought about it.
Speaker 1: Would that be a fair description of you, oh one,
Speaker 1: oh so tough early child today, addiction problems maybe something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: Just being gay in a Catholic Irish Catholic, Well that'll
Speaker 4: do it. And then like you know, and then nineties
Speaker 4: and early two thousands, I was gay, but I was
Speaker 4: like ten, fifteen, twenty.
Speaker 1: So when you're you're kind of like pre pubescent but
Speaker 1: still like you know who you are already.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I remember watching Beauty in the Beast
Speaker 4: and I was like, wow, Belle is a smoke show
Speaker 4: right now, And I was, but.
Speaker 2: It's hard to it's kind of hard when you were
Speaker 2: a kid.
Speaker 1: Because I remember saying when I was like, I know,
Speaker 1: I guess I had to be about twenty years old.
Speaker 2: I gave for a bit tried it really.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, well look the way I always got it,
Speaker 6: the way I always is lest if you say, look,
Speaker 6: I don't like chicken fingers, and you go, well, look
Speaker 6: pop one in your mouth.
Speaker 2: If you don't like it, then you know, get it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just go I don't like chicken fingers. As
Speaker 1: it turned out, I don't like chicken fingers, but I
Speaker 1: thought i'd kive them.
Speaker 5: I try.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was, you know, i'd have an
Speaker 1: open mind about the situation.
Speaker 5: But it turned out I love that.
Speaker 3: Well that makes me like you more and I liked
Speaker 3: you want to walk down.
Speaker 1: I don't have any judgment to make on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have it, and I kind of try. And
Speaker 1: it's not a kind of easy position to have because
Speaker 1: it kind of like it doesn't allow people to get
Speaker 1: angry at you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just kind of like it was my secret,
Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, nobody's gonna accept me if
Speaker 4: I tell anybody. So I remember, like in high school,
Speaker 4: you know, I went to an all girls Catholic high school,
Speaker 4: and as my dad says, it was worth every penny,
Speaker 4: which it was because I loved it. But that's right,
Speaker 4: looking back, like when I came out, and I remember
Speaker 4: like lying to my friends not that I couldn't drink
Speaker 4: alcohol because I was afraid that I said I had
Speaker 4: a stomach problem, but I just was afraid to get
Speaker 4: drunk because I was afraid I was going to.
Speaker 2: Tell you get gay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I know, I know what you mean.
Speaker 4: So and then in college, like like I.
Speaker 2: Did the opsite, I got drunk, told everyone was gay.
Speaker 2: I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like blowing guys, going this
Speaker 1: is not for me. I just like being friend, Like
Speaker 1: I just want to be around people.
Speaker 3: Everybody. Love everybody.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, love all the people.
Speaker 1: But that what's kind of interesting is that if you
Speaker 1: are dealing with a like at that level of discomfort,
Speaker 1: right like I don't know how to be who.
Speaker 2: I am in the world in which I inhabit.
Speaker 1: Is the is the standing on a stage of smoke screen,
Speaker 1: then is like don't look at that, look at us.
Speaker 4: You know, I think it more so I remember starting
Speaker 4: stand up. I was in still in the closet, right
Speaker 4: did stand up for like three years in college, and
Speaker 4: then it was like came out when I was at
Speaker 4: Second City, told my mom.
Speaker 3: Over the phone.
Speaker 4: Everything was ended up fine, but then I started doing
Speaker 4: stand up about being like my life, and like I thought,
Speaker 4: I was like ninety percent myself until I came out
Speaker 4: to my family, right, I was like, now I'm one
Speaker 4: hundred percent myself, and so now I can write everything.
Speaker 4: I can write about everything in my life, which is
Speaker 4: the funny part, which is me being in the closet.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that that's part of being free. Like
Speaker 1: that's what makes me more worry a little bit about
Speaker 1: it seems kind of outdated to call it cancel culture
Speaker 1: or but it makes me worry a little bit about
Speaker 1: the the pressure, particularly young comedians. Old comedians who have
Speaker 1: made their money. Fuck those guys, they were any major money.
Speaker 1: You're a professional. You know how to deal with it.
Speaker 1: Don't be ridiculous. But young people who are starting out
Speaker 1: thinking I better not talk about that, I think, well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably the things you think you better not talk
Speaker 1: about are probably things you.
Speaker 2: Really want to talk about, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That's what I think. Anyway.
Speaker 1: It's like I always thought the stuff that I ended
Speaker 1: up talking about, it was like I don't really want
Speaker 1: to do this bit, but I'll do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I feel like coming from like you can talk about
Speaker 4: stuff that might be touchy if you have a good
Speaker 4: point of view on it, it's actually funny.
Speaker 2: The way, right, gotta be funny.
Speaker 4: And you know, there's a lot of comics that try
Speaker 4: to do it and it's not funny. Then they just
Speaker 4: look like an asshole.
Speaker 2: Well, but that's not you.
Speaker 1: There's been and shit comics like I gotta watch this
Speaker 1: because I well, it's I think it's a lot of
Speaker 1: it as well. Is the This reminds me a little bit.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties it was a huge comedy boom
Speaker 1: and everywhere.
Speaker 2: You went it was a chucklehart or a laugh and
Speaker 2: or you know yeah, or you know looney bins. Can
Speaker 2: you call a club looney Bins? Now there's still cold
Speaker 2: looney bins. I feel like that's shaming to people.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: But what I mean is it's like you call it
Speaker 1: something like you're a looney?
Speaker 2: Is that I don't know. Maybe I'm just taking it.
Speaker 3: It's like you're a cuckoo.
Speaker 1: You're, yeah, cuckoo. But I think in Britain it might
Speaker 1: be different. It's one of those fanny words, like you know,
Speaker 1: fanny in Britain is vagina and Fanny in America.
Speaker 2: It's just like there's a butt. Yeah, it's just your butt,
Speaker 2: like saying but yeah.
Speaker 1: But like when I heard people saying, oh, you gave
Speaker 1: him a pattern of Fanny, I'm like, well, now I'm confused.
Speaker 5: I don't know who anybody and I'm not sure who hit.
Speaker 1: But I mean, look, everybody looks great in those paths,
Speaker 1: but I don't know who anybody is here.
Speaker 3: It's a I'll turned around. It's like looking like a
Speaker 3: lego down there.
Speaker 1: But I think that I want to get back to
Speaker 1: the idea of doing comedy to deal with trauma because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people this is what interests
Speaker 1: me about you is that you come in it in
Speaker 1: an academic shape, but it's clearly the engine and the
Speaker 1: fuel of what you do is to my mind, and
Speaker 1: this is probably a closed mind approach, but to my
Speaker 1: mind is a legit approach to comedy, which is you
Speaker 1: do it because you can't know do it. This is
Speaker 1: why when anybody says to me, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to be a comedian, I would say to them, can
Speaker 1: you be anything else? I?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sometimes I'm like, why do I need to keep
Speaker 3: doing that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know, because it is it's so up and down.
Speaker 4: The feeling of it is you're always like chasing a
Speaker 4: healthy drug or something.
Speaker 2: It has go addictive qualities. I think.
Speaker 1: I think that it has that kind of that feeling
Speaker 1: of why am I doing this again?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Why am I doing I remember like living in Chicago
Speaker 4: when I was like in my mid twenties, and you know,
Speaker 4: I just got into the laugh Factory and like I
Speaker 4: was doing the Annoyance and the Comedy Bar, and there
Speaker 4: was so many independent shows and it was awesome.
Speaker 3: It was like you could do two shows a night,
Speaker 3: three shows a night every night.
Speaker 4: It was amazing, right, And I remember I would go
Speaker 4: to lave Factory and I was a never I would
Speaker 4: never do very well at clubs back then, Like I
Speaker 4: was more of like a independent, like cool, like like
Speaker 4: a there would be more queer people at those independent
Speaker 4: shows than there would be at the regular clubs, right,
Speaker 4: And I would just bomb at the lat Factory and
Speaker 4: I remember just walking home crying every single time, and
Speaker 4: I'd be like, why am.
Speaker 3: I doing this?
Speaker 1: I think that, but that that's a real comedian. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: if you talk to a real any legitimate comedian, and
Speaker 1: my my perception of it and look, mine is, but
Speaker 1: it's my only view. It is the every comedian bombs,
Speaker 1: and that's why I think it has an addictive quality
Speaker 1: because you bomb and you go like a normal person
Speaker 1: doesn't go back, you know, if you go up there
Speaker 1: and you have the ritual, like serious public humiliation. But
Speaker 1: people are literally in my case, certainly in the earlier
Speaker 1: throwing things at me. And I'm thinking, yeah, but you
Speaker 1: gotta get up there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, You're like, like, but you just keep trying because
Speaker 4: maybe they'll taste different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the chicken fingers thing, but this is even
Speaker 1: the chicken fingers.
Speaker 2: I was like, no, I get it. It's just I
Speaker 2: don't need to go.
Speaker 3: Back to the healthy boundary.
Speaker 5: You know, I have had.
Speaker 1: Said I've talked to gay friends since gay Man says,
Speaker 1: you said, look, it was just the wrong penis, and
Speaker 1: I'm going.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't. It wasn't the wrong penis.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, I know they vary, but they don't
Speaker 1: vary that much.
Speaker 3: You know more than me.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you are you? Are you platinum?
Speaker 3: Just a gold star?
Speaker 5: Good for you?
Speaker 2: But I'm.
Speaker 5: Not all right.
Speaker 4: I do have friends that are like, do you know
Speaker 4: have done dabbled in most of my friends, but I'm like,
Speaker 4: absolutely not. No.
Speaker 2: I look, if you know what you like, and you
Speaker 2: know you know what you like, it's fine.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's plenty of people that know right away
Speaker 1: you don't need to bow to society pressure. But inside
Speaker 1: the like if you're saying, well, I'm doing shows in
Speaker 1: front of predominantly queer audiences and I'm doing grey but
Speaker 1: in front of the kind of more like Saturday night crows,
Speaker 1: it's it's a difficult thing.
Speaker 2: Why did you keep going back to the Saturday night crowds?
Speaker 3: Because I knew I could get them.
Speaker 4: I just needed to learn to tweak jokes and maybe
Speaker 4: write well. Actually it was a great learning lesson because
Speaker 4: then I was like, Okay, you know, now that I've
Speaker 4: been doing for so long, I don't catered audiences, but
Speaker 4: sometimes you do because you're like, oh, I'll do a
Speaker 4: lot of my queer jokes for the Queer Strip show
Speaker 4: or whatever. And then it kind of forced me to
Speaker 4: write about like more. I went in depth, like my
Speaker 4: family members and uh, childhood stories of like me as
Speaker 4: a kid, and that was more like universal.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I actually wrote a lot of great material
Speaker 4: that I'm proud of from having to challenge myself to
Speaker 4: go to those more clubby spaces.
Speaker 2: Do you come from a big family.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 4: I come from a very big family, and we're all
Speaker 4: really tight, like I'm Reds, like my cousins are like
Speaker 4: my We feel like immediate family. We share a house
Speaker 4: and uh on the lake and we use it all
Speaker 4: year around, like when I go show that.
Speaker 2: On Saturday Night Live, when you did that all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. You guys take a turkey around town and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Thanksgiving is a big, big time of year for us. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but we like whenever I go home. That's how That's
Speaker 4: how it is. It's like that many people.
Speaker 2: It seems very healthy.
Speaker 1: It seems very kind of well that that's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting to me because it seems supportive and comfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so why, on asked, did.
Speaker 5: You do comedy?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: If things are supportive and comfortable, just a reaction to
Speaker 1: being closeted, do you think.
Speaker 5: That's what it do?
Speaker 4: I think it was like I just was traumatized by
Speaker 4: my I made myself think these crazy things and I
Speaker 4: was I'm an anxious kid, like I went to I
Speaker 4: saw therapists in kindergarten because I had school phobia.
Speaker 3: I always thought my.
Speaker 4: Parents were gonna die when I when they left me,
Speaker 4: like when they went out on a date night. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and like my mom's sibling, one of my aunts or
Speaker 4: uncles to stay with us. I was like, when my
Speaker 4: parents walk out that door, they're going to die.
Speaker 1: That's that's an interesting reaction to it. I wonder where
Speaker 1: that's from.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I still have like obviously, I've been
Speaker 3: in therapy for a long time and I'm me too.
Speaker 2: I'm a big Fanily Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3: I'm like, whoa, let's good.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a good therapist. Do you get
Speaker 1: the wrong therapist. It's like the wrong chicken fingers, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fortunate. I'm in a good spot
Speaker 4: right now. But yeah, I think it was just I'm
Speaker 4: I'm very anxious person. I was an anxious kid.
Speaker 1: That's a shame. Mm hmm Are you are you anxious?
Speaker 4: Not?
Speaker 3: I'm always anxious.
Speaker 2: Do you have a fear of flying?
Speaker 4: Oh, fly the god damn plane if you need me,
Speaker 4: I said, I'm not afraid of I think it's like
Speaker 4: I overthink, like I'm worried right now about him if
Speaker 4: I'm moving around too much, that's just I'm like, you
Speaker 4: don't care times a thousands.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really, yeah it.
Speaker 1: Garrison Kila said, people in the Midwest are like people
Speaker 1: in elevators are all yeah all the time. It's like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's if that's trying to fit in
Speaker 1: or I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, I think it does.
Speaker 4: My therapis says, it's me when I was a kid
Speaker 4: trying to fit into the social norms of like that.
Speaker 2: You weren't built for square pegging around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's kind of How did you Did
Speaker 1: your family have any other gay family members?
Speaker 3: Or I have a no gay family members that we
Speaker 3: know of, not.
Speaker 4: In like my parents' era, and then I have some
Speaker 4: gay cousins that are like in my But do.
Speaker 5: You think that.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm not trying to make it anything hereditary here,
Speaker 1: but I just try to think the precedent of something like, well,
Speaker 1: your uncle George was always a confirmed bachelor?
Speaker 2: Was there always that kind of thing?
Speaker 3: Nothing like that?
Speaker 5: So that probably, you know, because.
Speaker 2: In my family, I don't think there was. Was there? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think my uncle Jack, your uncle Jack never married.
Speaker 1: I wonder why he died with just this friend like okay.
Speaker 3: But I don't know, I didn't have any of that.
Speaker 4: It was it was more I came out and then
Speaker 4: my other cousin came out and lispan groovy was it?
Speaker 1: Are you a religious family? You're an Irish Catholic family, right, Catholic?
Speaker 3: But we are.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to speak to for every one
Speaker 4: of my family members, but I was raised Catholic. I'm
Speaker 4: you know, be a good person and do right by
Speaker 4: you and your family, like, you know, just be a
Speaker 4: good human being. And I'm very grateful that I went
Speaker 4: to Catholic school because I feel like it really did
Speaker 4: teach me like kindness and hard work and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: And yeah, but yeah, the whole like you know, the
Speaker 4: priests thing is kind of weird.
Speaker 3: Like my mom, I remember when I came out.
Speaker 4: My Mom's like, okay, Molly doesn't have to eat meat anymore.
Speaker 4: Molly can eat meat on Fridays because they won't even let.
Speaker 3: The gays in the church.
Speaker 4: Right now, in my stand up, I'm starting to write
Speaker 4: more jokes about my identity gender identity because I like
Speaker 4: when the audience, like at the comedy Seller, the audience
Speaker 4: is mostly you know, clubby people like they're usually like
Speaker 4: tourists and stuff, right, And I love to talk about
Speaker 4: it because it kind of was like they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: is this person going to be preachy?
Speaker 3: But really I'm more just kind of making fun of myself.
Speaker 2: I was thinking that comedy Seller.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm talking completely a turn here because I've never
Speaker 1: played the comedy Seller.
Speaker 2: But I was thinking, no, I've never done that. I
Speaker 2: just don't do that kind of thing. You should go
Speaker 2: down and do so fun. That's what people say last
Speaker 2: I'm in bad by ten o'clock, you know, yeahs.
Speaker 1: I need like you know, people used to say, you
Speaker 1: know what you missed doing the late night show late
Speaker 1: at night?
Speaker 2: Like we were finished at six o'clock.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it is like difficult sometimes, like now that
Speaker 4: I've been doing I'm like a little over ten years,
Speaker 4: but getting up, having a full day off and then
Speaker 4: at ten o'clock at night, I gotta get on the
Speaker 4: train and I gotta go to a show.
Speaker 3: Once I get there, I'm like, WHOA sure, But that
Speaker 3: like hour.
Speaker 2: Before you're get the first line and you're fine, But.
Speaker 3: What am I doing? I'm gonna I gotta put jeans
Speaker 3: on right, now it's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you get O c D about performance?
Speaker 1: Do you like is it your little rituals or or
Speaker 1: like things you have to wear or any of that stuff.
Speaker 4: I like sometimes I have jokes about my appearance all
Speaker 4: like plany my outfit, but I usually just wear the
Speaker 4: same goddamn thing everything.
Speaker 1: Well, I what I do is if my casual, well
Speaker 1: do you seem informal? But I'm not dressed for the
Speaker 1: opera myself. But I get if I do a show
Speaker 1: and it's a good show, I wear that every night
Speaker 1: for ages. Really Yeah, like I was like, okay, I
Speaker 1: gotta wear these underpants then, because that's clearly that's wow.
Speaker 2: I have a complete lack of trust.
Speaker 1: And do you like go like nah, I don't like,
Speaker 1: I don't do I don't do any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I I I kind of tend to stretch a
Speaker 1: little bit before I go on. I try and get
Speaker 1: my breathing slower. Yeah, before I go on, because when
Speaker 1: I was younger, not even that, like even ten years ago,
Speaker 1: I look at performances I did then I.
Speaker 2: Go, what the fuck are you running all over the stage? Four?
Speaker 2: What's what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: And now like if I move more than a foot
Speaker 1: when I'm performing. It's a particularly animated night.
Speaker 4: I do you so, like I do this thing where
Speaker 4: sometimes we have an acting coach. I'll tap myself to
Speaker 4: like get your your engine running. Yeah, yeah, I like,
Speaker 4: don't drink before.
Speaker 2: Really, I try to stop my engine run before I go.
Speaker 5: On, and it works for me.
Speaker 3: I'm like riving a motora.
Speaker 2: No, no, I'm the other way around.
Speaker 3: I'm like, because your mind's racing.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, I mean this is not when I was thirty two.
Speaker 1: I was like doing push ups backstage like shit, like
Speaker 1: walking up and down and like you know, it was
Speaker 1: just like burpies and shit.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean it was nuts.
Speaker 1: But now it's like, m slow down and maybe I'll
Speaker 1: meditate a little bit, Like I'll sit in a chair
Speaker 1: and just slow my breathing down for twenty minutes before
Speaker 1: I go on. And then I got this thing now
Speaker 1: where I start the show where I say, you know,
Speaker 1: I tell the audience how long I've been doing it
Speaker 1: and how successful I've been at it. So if the
Speaker 1: show sucks, it's not my fault. It's mathematically they're the one.
Speaker 1: Like I've got Grammy nominations, I've got Emmy Awards, and
Speaker 1: I want to fucking pea buddy. I know that I
Speaker 1: can do this. So if if you think I can't
Speaker 1: do it, you're wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: It's a good out too, because then it pumps you
Speaker 4: up and you're like, I can do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it makes it.
Speaker 2: You need to feel that.
Speaker 1: I think I feel like it took me twenty five
Speaker 1: plus years of doing stand up to know that, like
Speaker 1: before I go on and go, I'm exactly where I
Speaker 1: should be.
Speaker 2: This is what I do, and.
Speaker 1: I'm good at it, and They've come here to see me,
Speaker 1: and and now I'm going to do the very best
Speaker 1: I can for them, and that feels good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes me more relaxed when I like have
Speaker 4: confidence before. Sometimes I get in my head and it's
Speaker 4: like once in a while, I'll get in my head
Speaker 4: and I'm like, this is gonna be.
Speaker 3: A bad show.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, because it's.
Speaker 3: Just something's off. I don't know what it is, and
Speaker 3: is it.
Speaker 4: I say maybe one out of five times. If I
Speaker 4: have that mindset, yeah it will be a memoir.
Speaker 1: But you know what I think, Jesus is me being
Speaker 1: a therapist a bad one. But that's I think what
Speaker 1: you're craving. Is the feeling of confidence if you saying
Speaker 1: you're an anxious person, and that feeling of confidence like
Speaker 1: I can do this and I'm I'm you know, I'm fine,
Speaker 1: and this is going to be a good show.
Speaker 2: That's a good feeling.
Speaker 1: That's that's heroine that I'm advocating the use of heroin,
Speaker 1: but feeling.
Speaker 2: But the feeling you.
Speaker 3: Can get it probably from a great show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 1: And I like that feeling. I seek that feeling now,
Speaker 1: even at this point, it's like, no, I I kind
Speaker 1: of I'm doing what I need to I'm where I
Speaker 1: need to be. I think some people get get it
Speaker 1: from fishing, some people get it from but I get
Speaker 1: it from everything's humming in the universe. My place in
Speaker 1: the universe is correct right now, this is where I
Speaker 1: should be. What about in a metaphysical term, for you,
Speaker 1: do you have a belief system? Do you have a
Speaker 1: philosophy or a religion that you I mean, I know
Speaker 1: you say be a nice person and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like to make my goal And I don't know
Speaker 4: if I always just make whoever I'm in the room
Speaker 4: with feel they're welcome and they're heard, and or else
Speaker 4: I can be hon it. Like if I see somebody
Speaker 4: in the group who's new to the group, I'll make
Speaker 4: sure that they feel okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of the great.
Speaker 1: That's being a nice person, right, But but what which
Speaker 1: is okay? I mean, in fact, that's essential. I think
Speaker 1: to be a nice person as you have to be
Speaker 1: nice to people.
Speaker 2: But I wonder if there's a like for you?
Speaker 1: Is there is there religious is there is there a
Speaker 1: is there a godlike figure? Is there a universe personality?
Speaker 1: Is there a deeper spiritual heartbeat to it?
Speaker 4: I think I I pray all the time, but not
Speaker 4: so much like in the Catholic way that they taught
Speaker 4: us in school, but more in the way they come
Speaker 4: My parents taught me to like, like growing up, we
Speaker 4: would always pray before bed, but it would be like
Speaker 4: pray to I.
Speaker 2: Hope I don't die and if it take my soul,
Speaker 2: yeah no, But.
Speaker 4: Like I pray to whoever, Like I pray to my
Speaker 4: friends who have passed away, and be like, can you.
Speaker 5: Please on me?
Speaker 3: I have a good children like or you know, I.
Speaker 4: Usually pray to them rather than like a god, if
Speaker 4: they will, I pray to like people are past that.
Speaker 2: So the people that are pasted, people who have died.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing relatives and friends, friends, you've had friends passed
Speaker 1: from what suicide?
Speaker 3: And like tragic accidents, These.
Speaker 1: Are hugely traumatic events. People committing suicide is hugely traumatic.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it is the single most traumatic event.
Speaker 2: Is that? What? What are the circumstances do you mean
Speaker 2: talking about that? Just?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 4: I think just depression And like it was around the
Speaker 4: time of college, and it's like, I don't know, you just.
Speaker 1: It's such a fucking scratch of depression, isn't it. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like, how the fuck do you unpick that ship?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's so misunderstood, I think. Is the thing.
Speaker 1: I used to do this whole bit in the act
Speaker 1: about it's about Tom Cruise. I was having to go
Speaker 1: him and he was he was saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: you know that something about depression. I think have something
Speaker 1: ideology about depression. I was saying, look, you don't understand
Speaker 1: the symptoms of depression is depression. That's that's what it is.
Speaker 1: You can't just fucking shake it off. But I'm not
Speaker 1: a doctor, and I think people mistake sadness and clinical
Speaker 1: depression is two separate things. It's as wide apart as
Speaker 1: you know, a Saturday night drunk and an alcoholic. I'm
Speaker 1: a fucking alcoholic. I've got friends who can drink on
Speaker 1: Saturday night and on Sunday they get home with their lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe a little slower in the morning, but they get
Speaker 1: home in their lives. I couldn't do that. I go
Speaker 1: out on Saturday night. I'll see you in February. Really,
Speaker 1: oh fuck? Yeah, Okay, it's a different thing for me.
Speaker 1: And these are misunderstood things about you know. It's like
Speaker 1: I've talked to Mike, one of my kids today. Actually,
Speaker 1: you said I won't be an alcoholic. I know too
Speaker 1: much because of you Like knowing shit doesn't protect you.
Speaker 1: It's like you got to put it in action. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Did you ever fall fellow that?
Speaker 1: Because it's a heavy party scene in Chicago with the
Speaker 1: comedian young comedians, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, we get We always had these
Speaker 4: jokes about getting paid.
Speaker 3: You get drink tickets, right, you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I used to call them beer tokens.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you do three shows in a night and you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: what I get? Okay?
Speaker 4: I took an uber or I had to take three trains,
Speaker 4: so I'm out. I'm out twenty five dollars. But I
Speaker 4: had three drink criickets and I would have bought beer,
Speaker 4: So I ever actually.
Speaker 3: Kind of came up on top. Yeah, it's like, but yeah,
Speaker 3: the party scene in Chicago.
Speaker 4: You know, you get down those and you hang out
Speaker 4: with people who are like, oh hey, drink every night. Man,
Speaker 4: I could drink with them tonight. Then it's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I don't want people to think that I'm drinking.
Speaker 3: Every time you see me. Yeah, but yeah, of course
Speaker 3: I was in my twentylve drinking.
Speaker 5: Sure for a lot people.
Speaker 1: It's look, I look, nobody knew I was an alcohol
Speaker 1: at least of all me and my Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: maybe something in my twenties.
Speaker 2: But as you get older, it starts to show a
Speaker 2: little more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I definitely cooled off, like in like
Speaker 4: maybe like past five years, I've cooled that.
Speaker 2: People grow up.
Speaker 1: Also, you know, you you find yourself in a situation
Speaker 1: now which you are in the corporate flagship.
Speaker 2: You know you are. It's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: So you're this, you're a queer kid who's doing this
Speaker 1: edgy comedy. The queer raw and is now you're on
Speaker 1: fucking Saturday Night Live, you're fucking Coca cola. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of interesting. That's like, how do you
Speaker 1: how do you exist and survive in that environment? And
Speaker 1: I look, I'm not putting you on the fucking spot
Speaker 1: here because I did ten fucking years at CBS.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and look, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm queer, but I'm certainly off the
Speaker 1: beaten pots somewhere, you know.
Speaker 5: What I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know I've tried a chicken finger two.
Speaker 2: I actually hooked to Branch about this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, when does the statue of limitations on blow
Speaker 1: jobs run out?
Speaker 5: Because if, if, if.
Speaker 1: It doesn't run out, I think I get to fly
Speaker 1: my rainbow flag. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I support your you, whoever you want to identify it with.
Speaker 3: I stand by your.
Speaker 5: God bless you. Great, that's good.
Speaker 3: You have one chicken finger every ten years, God bless you.
Speaker 5: No. No, I think my chicken finger days are behind me.
Speaker 1: But unless I can get my own chicken fingers, you
Speaker 1: couldn't lean the yoga.
Speaker 5: I think that's a bit.
Speaker 3: They already taken fingers.
Speaker 5: I don't know. It's good to have a dream. Good
Speaker 5: to have a goal.
Speaker 1: But but I think that you know, if we're looking
Speaker 1: at you existing in this this heavily because I I
Speaker 1: remember this from I was lucky because I had David
Speaker 1: Lariman protected me all the time.
Speaker 2: It's just fantastic. And he didn't he didn't have to
Speaker 2: do anything.
Speaker 1: He just had to be David Larraman, right, but because
Speaker 1: he owned the time slow that I was then, But
Speaker 1: had I had these corporate people crawling all over me,
Speaker 1: I don't know how how it exists.
Speaker 2: Are you protected from it? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I think it's kind of like head down
Speaker 4: and you're just trying to survive and play the game
Speaker 4: of trying to get your sketch on.
Speaker 3: Like it's just it's a big cast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard other members say that.
Speaker 4: But it's also like just so fun to I love
Speaker 4: table Read when we read all the sketches. I just
Speaker 4: think it because you're playing and you're doing all and
Speaker 4: I don't know. If I walk away from table Read
Speaker 4: with like a oh I had a good time and
Speaker 4: I actually genuinely felt a release of something from performing
Speaker 4: at the table, then I feel good.
Speaker 1: For a love performance American performers, I guess and maybe
Speaker 1: that's kind of the many ones I know. Saturday Night
Speaker 1: Live is a real childhood goal. It's a real kind
Speaker 1: of it. Was it that way for you?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah?
Speaker 3: I watched it so much.
Speaker 4: I think I kind of let it, to be honest,
Speaker 4: and like I think in like like five or six
Speaker 4: years ago, I was like, I'm just going to do
Speaker 4: stand up and act. There's no way, like I do
Speaker 4: stand up. How they want stand up comics to be
Speaker 4: on snl over character actors. Yeah, And then my year
Speaker 4: they picked up. They took on four stand ups. So
Speaker 4: it was Michael Longfellow, Devin Walker, Marcello Hernandez, myself and
Speaker 4: we all.
Speaker 3: Came from stand up.
Speaker 2: So did you all know each other?
Speaker 3: No, but we sure do now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love them. They're the best. They're so talented.
Speaker 1: It seems to have a collegiate thing Saturday. I remember
Speaker 1: talking to Bill hand about when he was on it.
Speaker 1: He's still very close with the people that were in
Speaker 1: his Oh yeah group.
Speaker 2: It has like almost like a college vibe.
Speaker 4: It is that right, and you go in and you're scared,
Speaker 4: and you're you don't know what's what's gonna happen, what
Speaker 4: the hell's you're just like I remember the first year.
Speaker 3: I was so in like a shock mode. I was like,
Speaker 3: this is awesome. Yeah, also like I I'm only I'm
Speaker 3: not sleeping well.
Speaker 4: And I was like, I remember when I first got
Speaker 4: us and I was like literally pooping blood.
Speaker 3: And I had to call my mom nervous.
Speaker 1: Pooping blood because you if you call it, if you're blood,
Speaker 1: you call a doctor.
Speaker 2: You don't call your mom.
Speaker 3: Well, she's a nurse.
Speaker 1: And look at I assumed your mom wasn't the doctor
Speaker 1: there right there and right.
Speaker 3: There, And it was just anxiety.
Speaker 2: Could you put blood with anxiety?
Speaker 3: I don't know everybody. No, I won't let of her
Speaker 3: secrets out.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, look I'm not judging you for poop blood.
Speaker 5: We've all pooped. It was just a little and I
Speaker 5: was like, yeah, I'm blood.
Speaker 4: I was like exploding because we couldn't tell, like in
Speaker 4: my mind, not in my butt, but we were we
Speaker 4: couldn't tell. We couldn't tell the news. We couldn't like
Speaker 4: the announcement wasn't out. And I was just sitting in
Speaker 4: this hotel room with like just yellow lighting, and I
Speaker 4: was like, oh my god, I couldn't eat. I was
Speaker 4: just so overwhelmed and anxious, and I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I would be I would be all of those things
Speaker 1: just for poop and blood. So I like, like, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to give me a job on Saturday, Nay
Speaker 1: live it just I pooped blood, I'd be like, Oh,
Speaker 1: by god, what the hell is going on? I actually
Speaker 1: did once I did well, as it turned out. What
Speaker 1: I did was this is like I there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of blood and I was on tour. I
Speaker 1: was on tour. So I called my doctor and I went,
Speaker 1: I think I have ass cancer and.
Speaker 2: He went, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Really, I went yeah, and he said, it's something on
Speaker 1: my my ass.
Speaker 2: He went, send me a photograph.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, yeah, I did so, so I took a
Speaker 1: photograph of I mean, look, it's really close up. It
Speaker 1: looks like a grateful Dead T shirt or something, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's like a like died, but
Speaker 1: you can't tell you would You wouldn't go, oh, I
Speaker 1: should go I don't really like ty die, that's what
Speaker 1: you'd say.
Speaker 2: But I sent it my daughter. He went, what you
Speaker 2: got there is a hemorrhoid.
Speaker 3: Oh guys get those a lot.
Speaker 5: Ladies get them too.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I think hemorrhoids are non gender specific.
Speaker 7: You can get and one with that asshole and get
Speaker 7: and I think we can agree we all have assholes.
Speaker 1: I find that like I thinks I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to keep secret. Yeah, see this is I think a
Speaker 1: little bit like you coming out, Like the thing you
Speaker 1: think you're going to keep secret becomes the thing that
Speaker 1: you talk about.
Speaker 4: And that feels good. You're like, that is so bad.
Speaker 4: That actually felt great that I told that.
Speaker 2: Well, I used to have that. This thing about like
Speaker 2: when I was drunk.
Speaker 1: I got sober mass twenty nine, so I've been sober
Speaker 1: thirty two and a half years.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: When I when I was drunk, I'd pee myself, I'd
Speaker 1: pee the bed. I'm so ashamed. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: because I was a bed wear as a kid. And
Speaker 1: then so I stopped went in the bed when I
Speaker 1: was about twelve. And then I started drinking was about fourteen,
Speaker 1: and it kicked.
Speaker 3: Back and we only gave it to your brain.
Speaker 5: It was only dry for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: And then I was so ashamed about it. And then
Speaker 1: I remember when I got sober, I have never got
Speaker 1: to talk about this is just the worst thing.
Speaker 2: And then, but three years later cut to be on
Speaker 2: stage going.
Speaker 5: So I'm paying the bed.
Speaker 4: You know, you once you conquer it and you cleared
Speaker 4: your sister and you're not drinking anymore, and you're in
Speaker 4: a better mindset because you're not a drunk anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's about shame though, I think.
Speaker 3: And hey, a lot of people be the bed.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you don't have to talk to me like,
Speaker 1: I don't do it anymore.
Speaker 5: Some people do, yeah, not me. Some people like you
Speaker 5: be the bed.
Speaker 2: Oh pee, buddy.
Speaker 1: I remember one of the things I was shamed about it.
Speaker 1: We went on a school trip once and there was
Speaker 1: a bunch of us in sleeping bags and I paid
Speaker 1: sleeping bag. I blamed it on a kid next to me.
Speaker 1: I would have done the same, yeah, fortunately, but they
Speaker 1: that the kid next to me is like, no way
Speaker 1: you did it.
Speaker 2: And it was always a bone of contention between the
Speaker 2: two of us. But I admit to it. Now, did
Speaker 2: you tell?
Speaker 3: Are you friends with that kid?
Speaker 4: Or no?
Speaker 3: Are you?
Speaker 2: Is no idea even what his name is now, but.
Speaker 3: He knows yours. I tell you that, but he's probably like.
Speaker 1: Now, but it never took I was just said it
Speaker 1: was him, but everyone, you know, they didn't.
Speaker 3: Believe yours was the damn sleep sleep back.
Speaker 5: He just rolling it up.
Speaker 3: It was ringing out the.
Speaker 5: Pitt right, it was.
Speaker 1: It was like I had the map of Africa and
Speaker 1: he just had a little bit of the Norwegian Fiords.
Speaker 2: So it was clearly who the guilty party was.
Speaker 4: That's traumatizing, though, that that is I find childhood very traumatized.
Speaker 3: It was terrified, first of embarrassments.
Speaker 2: I hated it. I hated it. I hated every not
Speaker 2: every bit of it.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I have happy memories of it, but
Speaker 1: I could you know, I can give you about twenty
Speaker 1: five of them, and then the rest of it. It's
Speaker 1: a bit of a bit of a blank actually a
Speaker 1: lot of it as well, which apparently isn't a good sign.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's might as well be. If it's bad,
Speaker 3: you don't need to remember.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no, I mean, I'm sure therapy is probably
Speaker 4: coming up here and there.
Speaker 1: Well, I haven't been doing therapy for a while. My
Speaker 1: thing arapist who was wonderful from Chicago, actually I went
Speaker 1: from Chicago.
Speaker 3: She died a few years oh, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was like losing It's like a super
Speaker 1: important family member, like something.
Speaker 2: She was really good.
Speaker 3: How long were you a patient of hers?
Speaker 2: I guess about ten years?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that's I'm so sorry. That is really
Speaker 4: that is yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was a deep loss, that's yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: It's a loss because she used to do this thing
Speaker 2: when I was talking to her. I would always be
Speaker 2: like that. When I was talking to her and she
Speaker 2: was saying, what is that?
Speaker 3: I know I do it too.
Speaker 2: What is that when you touch your chest? What is that?
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know. Is that where the pain is? Honey?
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, it'll be.
Speaker 1: Silly, but but but but I guess. I mean I
Speaker 1: would always go like that, Yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe maybe that is where the pain is.
Speaker 1: That is to be the funny, the body kind of
Speaker 1: does things like that. Yeah, like you you get have
Speaker 1: you ever done illnesses in your life?
Speaker 2: You had advanced and you were like.
Speaker 1: Well, you put blood because you were because you were anxious.
Speaker 1: I guess that's a real sight of it.
Speaker 4: When I was a kid, I was going to that therapist.
Speaker 4: I was in like kindergarten, third to like third grade
Speaker 4: or something like. I don't know how long I went
Speaker 4: to her, but I would get these stomach pains. It
Speaker 4: would always happen around right after dinner time. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: then I would start and then it would go away
Speaker 4: and I'd fall asleep. I'd wake up in the middle
Speaker 4: night with the same pain in my stomach. It like
Speaker 4: in grade school. I would be puking NonStop, puking, puking,
Speaker 4: puking for hours and hours and hours, and my parents
Speaker 4: would have to take me that.
Speaker 3: I would go to the hospital.
Speaker 4: Then they would like put me on like ivs and stuff,
Speaker 4: and they'd be like, we can't figure it out. It
Speaker 4: happened like maybe ten times, and then they did like
Speaker 4: a scope to like see what's in my stomach, and
Speaker 4: it was literally my stomach getting so tight and anxious
Speaker 4: that my stomach was having like a migraine.
Speaker 3: Wow, like from anxiety.
Speaker 2: That's a super high level of anxiety.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't even think it's been my whole life.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, am I really that anxious. I'm like,
Speaker 4: holy shit, I've been I'm packing in therapy and I'm
Speaker 4: like I'm a bubble of nerves.
Speaker 2: Wow, are you anxious? Now? Do you get anxious?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not anxious now because I feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're fine with me.
Speaker 1: But the idea, because this is very it's fascinating to
Speaker 1: me because I do the same thing.
Speaker 2: I'm quite an anxious kind of like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: is everything going to be okay? Person?
Speaker 1: And we both choose the most the number one thing
Speaker 1: that most people are afraid of, which is public.
Speaker 5: Humiliation, you know, is like speaking in public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like, why would you choose that if you're anxious?
Speaker 2: It's so crazy, right.
Speaker 3: I don't I think about all the time. I'm like,
Speaker 3: what the hell am I doing here? Like what am
Speaker 3: I doing? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I don't think that will go away. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm a little older than you, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean I know anymore and find in a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of ways that it probably knows less than
Speaker 1: I knew thirty years ago, or I'm less sure of
Speaker 1: things to worry by agent too.
Speaker 4: I'm definitely worry about like I need to get healthier,
Speaker 4: like take care of my body a little more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what does that look like for you?
Speaker 4: I've been working out this summer, so I've been just
Speaker 4: I'm going to go to the gym. My mom's in town.
Speaker 4: We're gonna go to the gym together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you do? You eat bad food? That's
Speaker 1: a Midwest problem sometimes.
Speaker 4: Of course, especially if I'm like, oh, I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: like I'll be like, oh, I'm not going to drink
Speaker 4: for a couple of weeks or take a break, and
Speaker 4: then I'm like, well, I really.
Speaker 3: Could use a slice of pizza.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who couldn't.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, if I could have a slice
Speaker 1: of pizza, the problem is, no, a slice of pizza.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pizza, Yeah, exactly, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's truly that is me too,
Speaker 1: me too. I totally get it. I fight with it
Speaker 1: the whole time. Like when I was I was Tubby
Speaker 1: little kid, I was fat kid in fight.
Speaker 2: That was my nickname when I was in grade school. Tubby. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Used to people who come to Tubby coming out tip
Speaker 2: a way. No, oh, we'll have Tubby for the team. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, sad. Feel sorry for me, don't don't hurt me. Damn,
Speaker 2: that was my name.
Speaker 5: I hated it.
Speaker 2: I fucking hated it. I hated it.
Speaker 5: Oh I'm still.
Speaker 2: Angry those not No angry them, most of them are dead.
Speaker 3: But it's I did confront a bully when I was
Speaker 3: home this month. It was the craziest.
Speaker 2: WHOA someone that bullied you when you were a kid.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, let me tell you.
Speaker 4: I went home to Cleveland throw out the first pitch
Speaker 4: for the Guardians game for the Price.
Speaker 1: Oh I remember them. Yeah, they were called something else
Speaker 1: when I saw him playing.
Speaker 3: YEA, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a whole match.
Speaker 3: My whole family.
Speaker 4: I got like thirty forty fifty of us in this
Speaker 4: loge and it was awesome.
Speaker 3: We go out on the town.
Speaker 4: I'm with my brothers and my cousins and we're at
Speaker 4: this bar and this girl's sitting there and I'm like
Speaker 4: and she was a neighborhood friend. She didn't go to
Speaker 4: my school. She was a neighborhood friend. And my brother's knew,
Speaker 4: and my brother Sean's like, I think that's the girls. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh my god. And I went up
Speaker 4: to her and I.
Speaker 3: Was like, whoa, what's up? How are you? She's like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, how are you?
Speaker 4: Like you're you're so funny like and I was like,
Speaker 4: I was pretty drunk, but I was like, you were
Speaker 4: so mean to me.
Speaker 3: I was like, you bullied a crap out of me,
Speaker 3: and I was going in on her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it felt good because she's like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: I really was really mean to you. Oh, And I
Speaker 4: was like, I remember you guys making fun of me
Speaker 4: for being fat, the neighborhood kids and would make me
Speaker 4: go up and get the scale from my parents' bathroom,
Speaker 4: and I went. I went up and I got it
Speaker 4: and I broke it, and then I brought it downstairs
Speaker 4: and I was like, sorry, guys.
Speaker 2: Scales, the scales broken.
Speaker 4: And my mom was like, how the hell did the
Speaker 4: scale get brock Okay, that's weird, and I was like,
Speaker 4: I told her, like, you know, ten years later, I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, I broke the scale.
Speaker 2: My fist totally understand, which is wild.
Speaker 3: I felt still so bad for my little self.
Speaker 1: No, I totally get that because I was There was
Speaker 1: a school project when I guess when I was about
Speaker 1: eight or nine years old, and they were weighing all
Speaker 1: the kids in the class and me, well.
Speaker 2: It was just science.
Speaker 1: It was just like they were measuring everyone and waiting.
Speaker 1: Ever then you drew your picture and everyone put their
Speaker 1: way in their picture. Of course I'm fat and all
Speaker 1: the other kids all right, And I was really upset,
Speaker 1: and then a couple of weeks later and it's up
Speaker 1: in the wall.
Speaker 2: It's looking at me.
Speaker 1: Every day, yourself, fortune, beer, your weight, and your height
Speaker 1: next day, and I'm like Jesus, And then I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've done something that got me out of trouble. And
Speaker 1: the punishment, which was unusual because usually the punishment when
Speaker 1: I was a kid was physical, like they would belt you.
Speaker 1: But the punishment was cleaning out the teacher's locker. So
Speaker 1: I had to clean out the teacher's locker. And there
Speaker 1: was a little teacher's report book and it was like
Speaker 1: all the kids, and I was like, you're looking at
Speaker 1: I looked at it. Yeah, and I got to mine.
Speaker 1: Obviously you look up yourself. Office is good and it
Speaker 1: said like the usual things easily distracted, like but of
Speaker 1: an asshole, good at this, bad at that. And it
Speaker 1: said he has a weight complex and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, away complex.
Speaker 2: And I think I still do. Uh, I don't know
Speaker 2: what what it is.
Speaker 4: That is wild And that was in the book. And
Speaker 4: she still got your weight on the wall.
Speaker 2: She's got up there in the wall.
Speaker 3: That's kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: But and then you know, I go to meetings and I,
Speaker 1: you know, amongst people that kind of live like me,
Speaker 1: and I say the traumatic thing from my childhood, and
Speaker 1: then somebody lays down some real trauma from their childhood
Speaker 1: and forget.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I.
Speaker 1: Said, I have a way complex, like, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: raised under the Soviet jack and you know in eastern
Speaker 1: suburbs of Moscow, Like, yeah, sorry, but other people's trauma
Speaker 1: don't take it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't take your trauma.
Speaker 3: Away, right, It doesn't compare that you can't.
Speaker 2: Apples and speedboats. But it does maybe give you a
Speaker 2: perspective on your own trauma.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it lightens it up, maybe maybe a.
Speaker 2: Little shines a little light on it, or it gives
Speaker 2: you a little bit of I don't know, breathing space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but whatever.
Speaker 1: It is, Molly, we're kind of out of time now
Speaker 1: because we talk really for too long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been we've been cruising.
Speaker 1: We fucking did it, We fucking did it. We got
Speaker 1: it fucking done. And now we're best friends, absolutely my
Speaker 1: best friends. And I think, after this, do you have
Speaker 1: any tattoos on my finger fingers? It's time to go
Speaker 1: and get something fucking major.
Speaker 3: Let's go right now.
Speaker 1: You live in Brooklyn. I like a tattoo parlor in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: You do, I do, So let's go out to Let's
Speaker 1: go out there. I think it's time and I don't.
Speaker 1: I was just talking to my wife today about this.
Speaker 1: I don't have any skulls. I have all these tattoos, but.
Speaker 2: Wow, there's that one, but that that one.
Speaker 3: This is kind of odd. You don't have any skull.
Speaker 4: I feel like I should have amount of tattoos you have.
Speaker 2: I should have a skull on fire.
Speaker 1: You have the sun, though I do have the sun,
Speaker 1: and I you know this one, I really know that
Speaker 1: is Saturn. Indeed, Saturn in mythology is the bringer of
Speaker 1: old age and what well, he also sat and ate
Speaker 1: his own children. But that's just a metaphor for old
Speaker 1: age and time passing. So normally I wear my watch there,
Speaker 1: but I take it off because I don't want to
Speaker 1: clinking against the microphone and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But even if I look at my rest when my
Speaker 1: watch is on, my watch is not on. Saturn's there
Speaker 1: like still timing fucking going, It's still fucking taking.
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool. Yeah, what's your newest one?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 2: I don't know that. Oh, I think this Hawthorne Bush here,
Speaker 2: I got it done in Chicago.
Speaker 3: Actually, that's nice. Yeah, I was gonna say that this
Speaker 3: was that one looks new.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's fairly new, but crispy.
Speaker 3: The new ones look good. Yeah, I like it's a hunker.
Speaker 5: Look at that.
Speaker 1: You know what I like? I like Dad like that
Speaker 1: makes me feel good.
Speaker 3: That's what I think we'll get.
Speaker 5: So that's what we'll get for you.
Speaker 2: We'll get a big snake up and a big chicken
Speaker 2: finger of him.
Speaker 4: Absolutely yes, mister fragg com in you later, Thank you
Speaker 4: so much,