Speaker 1: I's all that's okay because no one here.
Speaker 2: Is Hello everyone, It is once again time for teen
Speaker 2: Beat with Daniel Fishle and lucky.
Speaker 3: For this podcast.
Speaker 2: I am Daniel Fishle, and this is a podcast where
Speaker 2: I sit down with interesting people, hoping to turn the tables,
Speaker 2: forcing them to share their own awkward teenage stories with me.
Speaker 2: Because as a child, I performed from millions of people
Speaker 2: and a weekly salary, trading in my pre pubescence for
Speaker 2: a national sitcom fame. And so now thirty years later,
Speaker 2: I look at it like this. I gave you my childhood.
Speaker 2: It's time we hear yours. And this week I'm joined
Speaker 2: by a guest who, in adulthood, paints on trash, plays
Speaker 2: the ukulele, and is one of the funniest people I know.
Speaker 3: So I can only.
Speaker 2: Imagine we're in for an incredible childhood. You've seen this
Speaker 2: adorable dynamo on TV shows like How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs,
Speaker 2: Raising Hope, and The Big Bang Theory, where she played
Speaker 2: Raj's love interest Lucy, and she's a prolific voice actress.
Speaker 3: Heard is Velma in the modern Scooby Doo.
Speaker 2: Franchise webby Vanderquak on ducktails, and she's even somehow the
Speaker 2: voice of Clayface in the.
Speaker 3: Lego Batman movie. Not sure how that works.
Speaker 2: She was one half of the legendary musical comedy duo
Speaker 2: garfunkeln Oates and released her debut solo album of music
Speaker 2: for kids called My Hat in twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 2: now yet another creative endeavor to excel in her first
Speaker 2: ever children's book, The Monster and Puppet Show, was just
Speaker 2: released and is available everywhere. What is left for this
Speaker 2: pocket sized genius The teen Beat podcast, of course. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the Show actress, artist, author, musician, comedian and friend.
Speaker 3: Kate mccouchee.
Speaker 4: Hi, Oh my gosh, Danielle.
Speaker 5: That was just like the most heartwarming intro and I
Speaker 5: thank you so much. That was so that was really beautiful.
Speaker 5: Thank you for saying those kind things.
Speaker 3: You're so welcome. They are all true.
Speaker 2: You have led such an incredible, wonderful, beautiful life and
Speaker 2: I can't wait to learn more about where it all
Speaker 2: started in your childhood.
Speaker 5: I'm so excited to dive in. I'm just so thrilled
Speaker 5: to be here. It's great to see you.
Speaker 4: By the way, it's been a minute, so really nice
Speaker 4: to see you.
Speaker 3: Nice to see you. It has been a minute.
Speaker 2: I mentioned a few of your most notable voice over roles,
Speaker 2: but I didn't even touch on dog Man or Angry
Speaker 2: Birds or Adventure Time. I mean, the list truly feels
Speaker 2: like it never ends. Were you a cartoon kid?
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 5: I was very much a TV kid, okay, And in fact,
Speaker 5: every Sunday the TV Guide would come in the newspaper
Speaker 5: and my mom would hand me the TV Guide and say,
Speaker 5: here's your.
Speaker 4: Bible, and then I would circle my whole week.
Speaker 5: And I loved old movies and so, you know, but
Speaker 5: I also, you know, just everything you know, and so
Speaker 5: I watched a lot, a lot of TV, and I
Speaker 5: did watch a lot of cartoons, Scooby Doo being my
Speaker 5: favorite of all. And so when I got to actually
Speaker 5: be in Scooby Doo and play Velma, that was, like,
Speaker 5: you know, truly a dream come true.
Speaker 3: Do you remember did you have to audition for it
Speaker 3: or did they offer it to you? I did.
Speaker 5: I had to audition, and it was one of those
Speaker 5: things that came through. And it was when we were
Speaker 5: shooting the Garfunkle and Notes TV show, and I was
Speaker 5: I you know that that time was like an impossible schedule,
Speaker 5: and I got the call that they wanted me to audition,
Speaker 5: and I thought, oh my gosh, what a dream I
Speaker 5: would I would love to have that part. And so
Speaker 5: I auditioned, and I remember being a my closet, you know,
Speaker 5: recording it and sending it in, and then they had
Speaker 5: some notes and so I said, I really want.
Speaker 4: To get to these notes.
Speaker 5: I honestly don't know if I'll be able to get
Speaker 5: to them before next weekend. So the next weekend they
Speaker 5: waited for me, which was so nice, and then I
Speaker 5: went back into my closet, and then I remember getting
Speaker 5: the call and I was at a park we were shooting,
Speaker 5: and I got the call that I got Velma, and
Speaker 5: I did a dance around a tree.
Speaker 4: I was so excited.
Speaker 2: I love those moments where that is something you from
Speaker 2: the time you were a kid. Did it ever occur
Speaker 2: to you as a kid, like, hey, I could do that,
Speaker 2: someone is playing these voices and I want to or
Speaker 2: could do that, Or then when it ended up coming
Speaker 2: true for you that you get to play Velma from
Speaker 2: your favorite cartoon, does it just feel like, how is
Speaker 2: this even my life?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: I have those moments all the time, I wonder. You know,
Speaker 5: you've been doing this since you were a kid, so
Speaker 5: it was so much of your childhood that maybe it
Speaker 5: maybe doesn't seem as like fantastical or crazy.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but I'm sure.
Speaker 5: You have those moments everyone does where You're like, how
Speaker 5: is this happening right now? But there are times with
Speaker 5: Scooby Doo where we would all be in the studio,
Speaker 5: Gray and Matt Lillard and Frank Welker, and you know,
Speaker 5: I'm with these legends and I would just close my
Speaker 5: eyes and I'd think, oh my gosh, I'm I'm with
Speaker 5: these voices.
Speaker 4: This is so crazy.
Speaker 5: And Frank Welker, who plays Scooby and Fred, has been
Speaker 5: doing it since the very beginning, so we all grew
Speaker 5: up listening to his voice and Scooby Doo among a
Speaker 5: thousand to other things, and I would just close my
Speaker 5: eyes and then I'd be like, oh, it's my line, okay,
Speaker 5: And it was just the coolest feeling. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 5: there's definitely I have those moments a lot.
Speaker 4: It's you know, it's a cool thing.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I'm sure do you have a good like,
Speaker 5: do you have a moment whre you're like, I can't
Speaker 5: believe this. I'm sure with like even Dancing with the Star,
Speaker 5: many times you're probably like, what is my life right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? But you know the I think the closest one
Speaker 2: I have for that was when I started hosting the
Speaker 2: Dish for the Style Network. I was such a huge
Speaker 2: fan of the soup when I was like going back
Speaker 2: to Greg kinnear, I mean the very beginning of it.
Speaker 3: I have always loved the soup.
Speaker 2: And so then when I heard, oh, they're going to
Speaker 2: do a similar show but on the Style Network, and
Speaker 2: they want it to be hosted by a woman, and
Speaker 2: they want you to meet for it, it was like, what,
Speaker 2: I've never wanted a job more. I know this job,
Speaker 2: I'm familiar with this job, like, I want this.
Speaker 3: It feels perfect for me.
Speaker 2: And so then when you accomplish the goal and you book,
Speaker 2: you know, you have the meeting, and you there's always
Speaker 2: for me, at least, it's always seemed like in every
Speaker 2: job that I've had that I've loved, there's always a
Speaker 2: moment where I think I don't have it, you know,
Speaker 2: or I really don't have it, like in that case
Speaker 2: hosting the Dish, I did the meeting, they really liked me,
Speaker 2: but they had already had someone else on contract, and
Speaker 2: they were basically worried that contract wasn't going to work
Speaker 2: out because the person they had picked maybe going to
Speaker 2: do a different show she was in first position for,
Speaker 2: and so then they were like, oh, that show's not happening.
Speaker 2: She is going to host this show. And so I
Speaker 2: didn't have it, and like months went by of me
Speaker 2: feeling like I wanted it so bad and I didn't
Speaker 2: get it, and then it all changed and she did
Speaker 2: leave to go do a different show, and they called
Speaker 2: me and said it's yours, and just I couldn't believe
Speaker 2: it was my life. So yeah, that's that's I was like,
Speaker 2: my god, when those moments happen, it's such a it
Speaker 2: feels so good, I feel. I always feel like they're
Speaker 2: little signs that you're on the right path.
Speaker 5: Definitely, I so agree. And I like even just as
Speaker 5: you're telling the story, I could feel your happiness and
Speaker 5: excitement about like, like me, then you always have that
Speaker 5: that moment to like just like you know, if you're
Speaker 5: feeling down and you can remember that moment and be
Speaker 5: like oh right, yes, Like it's a it's a gift
Speaker 5: in so many ways, and yeah, I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 5: those little like happy little dances you know, in our
Speaker 5: in our closet or whatever, like those, It just those
Speaker 5: are the magic moments sometimes.
Speaker 2: Absolutely picture your dance around the tree, akin to Nicole
Speaker 2: Kidman dancing after she'd finally divorced Tom Goats.
Speaker 4: Those photos are incredible.
Speaker 3: Those are the greatest photos.
Speaker 4: Just great.
Speaker 2: I don't even know that I believe that it's actually
Speaker 2: right after the doors.
Speaker 3: I just know whatever it was, she's so happy. I
Speaker 3: just love that for.
Speaker 2: Her, you know, Yes, yes, I don't think I'm speaking
Speaker 2: out of turn when I say that you have always
Speaker 2: had a forever young aura about you.
Speaker 3: When you were a teenager, did you look like a baby.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to imagine how you could possibly look younger
Speaker 2: than you do.
Speaker 4: I that's thank you.
Speaker 5: I it's funny because I just still I mean, I
Speaker 5: think I hear people in their eighties and nineties talk
Speaker 5: about this where you still feel like you're in your
Speaker 5: twenties or something, But I think I do. I was
Speaker 5: trudging through the snow last night. I'm in New York City.
Speaker 5: It is just a beautiful snowstorm right now. And last
Speaker 5: night I was like I've got to go out. I've
Speaker 5: got to go play in the snow, because it was
Speaker 5: really good packing snow and I just was running through
Speaker 5: the snow by myself and I really was like, I
Speaker 5: feel like I'm.
Speaker 4: Fourteen, right.
Speaker 5: And then the coolest thing is I you know, the
Speaker 5: great thing about the cities, you just people are friendly
Speaker 5: and they talk and I ended up making a ten
Speaker 5: foot snowman with like ten other people and it was
Speaker 5: this incredible night. And but yeah, I do think I think,
Speaker 5: well to that point, I think we're all kids, Like
Speaker 5: this was a bunch of grown ups making a snowman,
Speaker 5: and I don't know that. I mean, I think as
Speaker 5: I get older, I'm more aware that the things that
Speaker 5: I make really come from that childlike place.
Speaker 4: It's you know, it's not intentional, it never really was.
Speaker 5: It's just sort of naturally what happens when I make
Speaker 5: art or music. It just is, you know, I'm if
Speaker 5: it's coming from that core place and me it's usually
Speaker 5: childlike in some way.
Speaker 4: Recently, some one posted I love this.
Speaker 5: I should have like screen grabbed it because now, who
Speaker 5: the I don't know where it is, but it said
Speaker 5: that twelve year old is nearly fifty.
Speaker 6: That's true.
Speaker 4: Yes, wow, no, it is.
Speaker 2: It's so it's to me, it's so inspiring because it
Speaker 2: is very clear that you still have like a direct
Speaker 2: pipeline to your childlike self, to the child within you,
Speaker 2: and for so many of us, as we get older,
Speaker 2: it becomes harder and harder to access that childlike part
Speaker 2: of us. And I was reading Actually Captain Underpants to
Speaker 2: my six and a half year old the other night,
Speaker 2: and we were in the chapter part of the book
Speaker 2: where he specifically mentions, you know, how adult anytime you
Speaker 2: get a group of kids together and they start having fun,
Speaker 2: I guarantee you within a couple of moments, some adult
Speaker 2: will come over and tell you to quiet down, and
Speaker 2: you know, stop doing that. And he was like, don't
Speaker 2: believe me, Go try it. Go in a corner with
Speaker 2: your friends and start giggling and having too much fun
Speaker 2: and just wait and see. And other as I'm reading
Speaker 2: is going yep, yep, that's true. And I thought, yeah, like,
Speaker 2: I don't have as direct access to that childlike part
Speaker 2: of me anymore, and I don't like, what do you
Speaker 2: think there's anything you do to continue to cultivate it?
Speaker 3: Or is it just naturally who you are. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think it probably is who I am in a
Speaker 5: lot of ways. I also really love trying to bring
Speaker 5: people in in moments that can be celebrated, even if
Speaker 5: they're like silly. Like I'm always the first to like
Speaker 5: like start like cheering or clapping at something that might
Speaker 5: like I don't know, Like, they had a thing called
Speaker 5: Mulchfest here in New York where they they take all
Speaker 5: the Christmas trees. People bring the Christmas trees to a
Speaker 5: certain spot and then they bring these multures and they
Speaker 5: like hand out bags and they just you know, the
Speaker 5: trees get shopped into mulch and it's called Mulchfest. I've
Speaker 5: never been to Mulchfest. I'm need to New York City.
Speaker 5: So I said, I have a six year old as well,
Speaker 5: and I said, let's go to mulch Fest.
Speaker 4: And he was like, yeah, mulch Fest. And I didn't
Speaker 4: know what it was going to be.
Speaker 5: And it was for most of the time just me
Speaker 5: and my son Mikey watching the multure, but then we
Speaker 5: like started cheering, like as the tree. I was like yeah,
Speaker 5: and then like we just like started making it a thing,
Speaker 5: and then more people like started watching and then like
Speaker 5: we made it a little moment. And then the guys
Speaker 5: who were doing the mult were like, this is really funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is great. By the way, he thinks, it's
Speaker 3: helping us. It's giving us motivation to keep mulching these trees. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I don't know. I mean, that's just an example
Speaker 4: of like I just I think too. I just try
Speaker 4: to appreciate things, and.
Speaker 5: But I don't know as far as the kid like stuff,
Speaker 5: I I I hope I always feel I don't know.
Speaker 5: So far in my forty five years, I still kind
Speaker 5: of feel the same, So I guess I hopefully it
Speaker 5: will continue.
Speaker 4: The other day, I was.
Speaker 5: Walking down the street and there was this woman and
Speaker 5: she was she had a cane and she was moving
Speaker 5: kind of slow, and I said, oh, hi, how you doing,
Speaker 5: and she goes, I'm great. And then like a couple
Speaker 5: of minutes, a couple beats later, she turned to me
Speaker 5: and goes, isn't it funny. I said, I'm great. I've
Speaker 5: got a cane and I'm moving so slow. I said, well, yeah,
Speaker 5: look great.
Speaker 4: And I thought to myself.
Speaker 5: She had this youthful way about her, and I was like,
Speaker 5: I hope I'm like her.
Speaker 4: Yea, when I'm her age. You know, it's so sweet.
Speaker 2: I love too that she realized like she probably hadn't
Speaker 2: thought like how am I or you know, and then
Speaker 2: you pointed it out and her natural response was I'm great.
Speaker 3: And then she thought, I wonder what I looked like.
Speaker 2: To that woman who asked, And what I looked like
Speaker 2: is an older woman walking slowly with a cane.
Speaker 3: And yet the truth is I'm great. I love that.
Speaker 4: It was really sweet.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I don't know, I feel like and I'm
Speaker 5: sure you know, having kids, I was always very excited
Speaker 5: to be a mom because I always wondered what I
Speaker 5: would make with my kid, and I also wondered, like
Speaker 5: what I would be like with my kid? Yeah, and
Speaker 5: it does. It is a good way to tap in,
Speaker 5: you know. But yeah, yeah, Captain Underpants is.
Speaker 4: I guess there.
Speaker 2: Are well For as young of an aura as you have,
Speaker 2: you also have very old fashioned taste. You play the ukulele,
Speaker 2: You had an educational focus on puppetry.
Speaker 3: And you are an expert in sand castle building. Yeah
Speaker 3: I mentioned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mentioned all of this to ask were you
Speaker 2: a popular kid?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: Shocking, No, I was not, although I was kind of
Speaker 5: I just kept to myself.
Speaker 4: You know, I was very shy.
Speaker 5: I I spent every lunch I could in the in
Speaker 5: the art room, and which is like one of those
Speaker 5: cliches you hear, but it was very true. And I
Speaker 5: kind of knew everyone, and I was I think friendly,
Speaker 5: but I never got like asked for the party or
Speaker 5: you know, any of that kind of thing. And I
Speaker 5: didn't want to. I think that was my protective way
Speaker 5: about being I was like, oh, I don't.
Speaker 4: Want that anyway.
Speaker 5: So it was a way of protecting myself that I
Speaker 5: wasn't invited to things because I was like, well, I'm good.
Speaker 2: You know, you were rejecting them rather than rejecting you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, take that.
Speaker 4: Cool kids.
Speaker 2: Yet, But where did that like influence come from for you?
Speaker 3: Were your parents into those things?
Speaker 2: Like most a lot of kids, at least my kids,
Speaker 2: all their reference for things that they're into come from
Speaker 2: pop cul things that are cool in pop culture, what
Speaker 2: their friends are into, or things that Jensen Ry are into. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so like, where did those interests come from for you?
Speaker 4: You know, I think I don't know.
Speaker 5: My mom was really great about taking my brother and
Speaker 5: I to the library, and I think that has a
Speaker 5: huge influence on me the more I think about it
Speaker 5: as I get older, because we'd always be getting books
Speaker 5: and reading a lot. And then my favorite thing about
Speaker 5: the library was the tapes. And I'd always go to
Speaker 5: the Broadway section and a big Broadway nerd, just like
Speaker 5: a up all of the all of the music I
Speaker 5: could get, and I just remember feeling like I could
Speaker 5: get lost in those, you know, those soundtracks, and also
Speaker 5: a big film score nerd. And so I think and
Speaker 5: Hollywood like that was always like for me. I would
Speaker 5: read People magazine and Entertainment Weekly. Those are my two
Speaker 5: gateways into you know. And my school librarian in high
Speaker 5: school used to save me those two magazines so that
Speaker 5: i'd get the old week old copies. You'd give them
Speaker 5: to me every week and I'd save them. And I think,
Speaker 5: just like living in this pretend world. I grew up
Speaker 5: in a small town in Pennsylvania, yet I like dreamt
Speaker 5: of you know, I dreamt of Hollywood.
Speaker 4: I never thought.
Speaker 5: I just loved I loved the idea of it, and
Speaker 5: I loved, you know, I love movies, and I saw
Speaker 5: everything I could, and I guess I lived very much
Speaker 5: in a pretend world.
Speaker 4: I guess in a way.
Speaker 5: But I also was just genuinely happy making things. I
Speaker 5: was always painting and drawing, and I had a really
Speaker 5: cool train set, but like to paint a picture my
Speaker 5: sixteen the summer I was sixteen, the majority of my
Speaker 5: summer was in that basement making a train set. So
Speaker 5: that's really that kind of says it all, I guess
Speaker 5: right there. But like even in the train set, I
Speaker 5: had like my Hollywood imagination and like oh and like
Speaker 5: Jim Carrey like lived behind this, like you know, it
Speaker 5: was just like I had like the famous people of
Speaker 5: the time living in my train set, in my imaginary world.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah, I think I wasn't.
Speaker 5: I didn't start dating really until I was twenty four,
Speaker 5: you know, like I was a when they say late bloomer,
Speaker 5: that's really really late in the scheme of most most
Speaker 5: people in life. But I've kind of always been a
Speaker 5: little slow to things, and I think that's okay, you know, yeah.
Speaker 3: That is okay.
Speaker 2: I also, well, I mean compared to you, when I
Speaker 2: say I was, I was a little bit of a
Speaker 2: late bloomer in the sense that I didn't really want
Speaker 2: to experience. I mean, I had lots of crushes on boys,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't actually ready to act on any of
Speaker 2: those feelings until later than most. But I all I
Speaker 2: wanted to do was focus on boys like I just
Speaker 2: I wanted to think about them all the time. I
Speaker 2: wanted to chalk to them all the time. I wanted
Speaker 2: to write notes to them all the time. But I had,
Speaker 2: you know, and then maybe hold hands. But compared to you,
Speaker 2: I think actually I was flying id a lot.
Speaker 4: What you just described. I was like, oh man, I
Speaker 4: wish I was that brave.
Speaker 2: So brave I do want to I mean I buried
Speaker 2: the lead a little bit here.
Speaker 3: Sand castle building, oh right, I'm dying to know where
Speaker 3: do you even pick this skill up?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: I worked at Shutters in Santa Monica, Okay, the hotel
Speaker 5: on the beach.
Speaker 4: It's a beautiful hotel.
Speaker 5: My brother was a doorman there, and so I was
Speaker 5: about I don't know, right around the time I started dating.
Speaker 5: I was twenty four and my brother was working there
Speaker 5: and he said, I have heard they want to start
Speaker 5: doing sand castle classes. And I told them, you're really
Speaker 5: good at making things in the sand. And this just
Speaker 5: came from being at the beach growing up with my
Speaker 5: brother he just I'd always make things in the sand,
Speaker 5: and I was like, yeah, I could do that, but
Speaker 5: you know, I was doing every.
Speaker 4: Odd job possible like, so I was like sure, and
Speaker 4: and then we ended up like it was a weekly class.
Speaker 4: It ended up being really awesome. It was.
Speaker 5: It was just the funny thing about it is usually
Speaker 5: it was the parents that got excited about making things
Speaker 5: and the kids really didn't care at all. But so
Speaker 5: I ended up making sand castles with a lot of parents.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 2: I thought my kids would be very I was excited
Speaker 2: to teach my kids, like.
Speaker 3: Here's how you build a sand castle. All they want
Speaker 3: to do is dig holes. Yeah, they just want it.
Speaker 3: They want to.
Speaker 2: Dig and like watch it fill up with water and
Speaker 2: then fill it back up. Or they want to be
Speaker 2: covered with the sand, which is like my nightmare. And
Speaker 2: I'm the one who wants to build a sand castle.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to need you to teach me some
Speaker 2: skills next time.
Speaker 4: Next next time I'm there, we can do it.
Speaker 2: Let's do okay, great, next time you visit La, we'll
Speaker 2: meet at the beach, so you could teach me how
Speaker 2: to build a sand castle. I'm super down you would
Speaker 2: assume that that might be the strangest thing you had
Speaker 2: ever done to make ends meet.
Speaker 3: But then I.
Speaker 2: Stumble on watering banana and pineapple plants in Hawaii.
Speaker 5: That was Yeah, that was more of a family gig.
Speaker 4: I guess you could say my aunt and uncle lived
Speaker 4: in Hawaii and Big I still do. They're on the
Speaker 4: Big Island.
Speaker 5: And I grew up in the small town, like I
Speaker 5: had mentioned, never had been to Hawaii, and I had gone.
Speaker 4: To a two year art school. My plan was to
Speaker 4: be a toy designer.
Speaker 5: And I love the movie Big and I think there
Speaker 5: was a part of me that was like, I want
Speaker 5: Aloft with a trampoline and a buck bed. That's the dream.
Speaker 5: And I thought, well, then I'll be a toy designer.
Speaker 5: But also I loved toys, so it kind of made
Speaker 5: sense for me. And so I went to a two
Speaker 5: year art school that had a great It was like
Speaker 5: a good gateway too. Then going to school to be
Speaker 5: a toy designer, yeah, here in New York.
Speaker 4: And then I just wasn't ready for.
Speaker 5: The big city of New York City. I was like
Speaker 5: a little scared by it. I think my dad said,
Speaker 5: why don't you take some time off because you know,
Speaker 5: school was expensive and trying to figure out the right school.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to make the wrong decision.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so my uncle, my aunt, uncle and aunt in
Speaker 5: Hawaii and Audrey and uncle Eddie, theyre the best.
Speaker 4: They said stay with us. So I slept.
Speaker 5: They had this like covered porch and I slept in
Speaker 5: this giant chair. That was my bid and as my
Speaker 5: way of repaying them for letting me stay there.
Speaker 4: For it was only three months, but it's a good
Speaker 4: chunk of time.
Speaker 5: I did all of their They had huge farm of
Speaker 5: like banana plants and pineapple plants, and I did all
Speaker 5: the watering.
Speaker 4: So it was great.
Speaker 3: That is so cool.
Speaker 2: I love when family, both for your parents and your
Speaker 2: aunt and uncle for them to be so supportive to
Speaker 2: say one, I mean a lot of parents here that
Speaker 2: their kids just spent a bunch of money on school,
Speaker 2: or that they spent a bunch of money on school,
Speaker 2: and then I still don't know what I want to
Speaker 2: do and youth, and the the response is not maybe
Speaker 2: you need to take time off, it's well and what
Speaker 2: have you been? You know, there's like a different energy
Speaker 2: around it.
Speaker 3: But your parents.
Speaker 2: Really nurtured the idea that you needed to take your
Speaker 2: time and that you needed to really feel good about whatever.
Speaker 3: Was the next step for you.
Speaker 2: So they encouraged you to take that time off and
Speaker 2: then for you to have an aunt and uncle to say, hey,
Speaker 2: come be with us for three months and figure it
Speaker 2: out and think about it.
Speaker 3: That's so cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 5: You know. I think there's so much pressure put on
Speaker 5: kids to just you know, they're expected to know what they.
Speaker 4: Want to be.
Speaker 5: And yeah, and these days, I think everything's changing so
Speaker 5: quickly that who knows, like what jobs are going to
Speaker 5: look like, Like it's so hard to know what you
Speaker 5: want to be.
Speaker 4: And I still every day I'm like, what am I today?
Speaker 5: Like, you know, I'm very fortunate that I get to
Speaker 5: jump around and try a lot of things, and I
Speaker 5: know that's a really lucky thing. But I feel like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's always great to just be open kind
Speaker 5: of And I think that was the idea in Hawaii too,
Speaker 5: where I was just like I ri at universe, like
Speaker 5: send me some signs, and it really I got some
Speaker 5: signs while I was one, being that my grandpa, who
Speaker 5: was also there at the time, bought me a ukulele
Speaker 5: and that's when I started playing ukulele.
Speaker 4: So and you know, almost cliche that.
Speaker 5: I started playing the ukulele in Hawaii, but it led
Speaker 5: to a lot of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly that led to so many things. For you
Speaker 2: is that when I first realized you were a musician.
Speaker 4: No, I grew up playing classical piano.
Speaker 5: So I think maybe the classical piano part of my
Speaker 5: life also feeds into my being just sort of a
Speaker 5: solitary person.
Speaker 4: But I grew up competing.
Speaker 5: My brother and I both competed with piano, and you know,
Speaker 5: was practicing. My mom really was very strict about it,
Speaker 5: and so we had to practice at least an hour
Speaker 5: a day. And yeah, by the time I was a
Speaker 5: senior in high school, I was probably practicing close to
Speaker 5: three hours a day and I and then I just
Speaker 5: stopped for a while. I started taking it again in college.
Speaker 5: But I am just so grateful that I have that training,
Speaker 5: because I think my classical training, I don't have it.
Speaker 5: You know, there's a few pieces I still have in
Speaker 5: my memory, but it's more that I apply it to
Speaker 5: a lot of other things that I do, even just
Speaker 5: how I look at a script or you know, a project,
Speaker 5: or like how do I kind of see it like
Speaker 5: I do music.
Speaker 4: In a way I wish I.
Speaker 2: Could get my children to focus on anything for even
Speaker 2: close to an hour. Yeah, I apparently am not being
Speaker 2: strict enough, because who that would be an absolute fight.
Speaker 2: We try to just do homework or you know, practice
Speaker 2: reading and writing for thirty minutes a day, and boy,
Speaker 2: you'd think I was holding their hands to a fire.
Speaker 5: I feel you we are in the same boat, you
Speaker 5: and I. Yeah, my son does not want to do
Speaker 5: I mean the reading homework. If we get through it,
Speaker 5: and like as soon as we're done, it's like it's over.
Speaker 5: But yes, but I think I wonder, like, you know,
Speaker 5: by the time I started playing piano at four and
Speaker 5: Mikey is six, and I don't know, like I don't
Speaker 5: know when. I really really hope that he'll have.
Speaker 4: An instrument he focuses on.
Speaker 5: But I still it's a big question mark as to
Speaker 5: how I'm going to try to have him do that.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: My husband's a musician, so he's all around music, you know, hmm,
Speaker 5: But I don't know.
Speaker 4: I feel the same way. I want him to have
Speaker 4: a focus.
Speaker 5: Maybe it's not music, maybe it's something else, but right right,
Speaker 5: right now, it's just flipping off the couch.
Speaker 2: Correct all the time, all the time. The minute he
Speaker 2: comes home, my son throws his back back down, rips
Speaker 2: off his shirt, and goes immediately to like jumping off
Speaker 2: the couch, throwing them at throwing the cushions on the floor,
Speaker 2: practicing wrestling. I'm like, Okay, this is so much boy energy.
Speaker 5: We need to get the kids together next time. The
Speaker 5: yes sounds like they'll really get along.
Speaker 3: I think they will.
Speaker 2: And then we have my other son, Keaton, four and
Speaker 2: a half, and he's right there with them, so I.
Speaker 3: Think I think the three of them will have a
Speaker 3: blast together. You mentioned being from a small town.
Speaker 2: What was high school like for young Kate mccoochee in
Speaker 2: small town Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: You know, again, I was pretty pretty shy, but I
Speaker 5: have good memories of high school. I think middle school
Speaker 5: was really rough for me. I think that was a
Speaker 5: bad time, and looking back, I was, you know, I
Speaker 5: just think even just like you know, it's that hormone
Speaker 5: shift and everything else. I was just kind of lost
Speaker 5: and sad and didn't know why. And then once I
Speaker 5: got to ninth grade, I think my body started evening
Speaker 5: out or something, so I started feeling like, oh okay,
Speaker 5: and that's really when I was throwing myself into art
Speaker 5: a lot more and you know, finding myself a bit there.
Speaker 5: But I feel like I have great memories of high school.
Speaker 5: It was just awkward, but it wasn't bad.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I think that I really loved my teachers.
Speaker 5: My senior year, they found mold in the high school,
Speaker 5: like throughout the high school and then so I only
Speaker 5: had school for two hours a day and that was
Speaker 5: a whole crazy thing. So my brother and I were
Speaker 5: ski instructors. So during the winter we'd go to school
Speaker 5: for two hours then go skiing. Like there's like good
Speaker 5: memories there.
Speaker 2: Yes, by the way, ski instructor for high school sounds awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know we thought.
Speaker 5: I remember my parents saying like we thought, like, you know,
Speaker 5: gets you in like the cool kid mixed somehow.
Speaker 4: It really my brother and I were like.
Speaker 5: Really the nerdy ski instructors, but you know it was,
Speaker 5: you know, we were teaching little kids like I'm very
Speaker 5: good at skiing backwards slowly.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, so that's the skill you took on from Yes, okay,
Speaker 2: that's great.
Speaker 5: So a lot of like memories of like snot and
Speaker 5: cold gummy bears as rewards.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and saying pizza French fries, Pizza French fries
Speaker 2: as often as possible. When did your last name become
Speaker 2: funny to kids?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: You know, it's it's interesting.
Speaker 5: That's such a good question, because I don't. I think
Speaker 5: it snuck up on me. I think that first of all,
Speaker 5: I didn't know that there was like, uh, you know,
Speaker 5: a dirty connotation for my last name until I was
Speaker 5: reading the play The Vagina Monologues, when I was like,
Speaker 5: I don't know twenty five and that word was in
Speaker 5: a long list of words, and I was like, oh
Speaker 5: my god, that is what that is why, that is
Speaker 5: why they were this moment, this moment, this moment was
Speaker 5: like a in my mind, bro. So yeah, that became
Speaker 5: funny to me then because I was like.
Speaker 4: How did I miss that? But I missed sheltered sheltered kid.
Speaker 5: But I I kids love to say my last name,
Speaker 5: and kids love to say my full name, So among
Speaker 5: I really kind of realized it when I was babysitting
Speaker 5: a lot, like after college, I was babysitting to like
Speaker 5: pay my bills, and kids always said Kate Macouchi, Kate
Speaker 5: mcuchie and to this day. It's just a funny. It's
Speaker 5: a fun funny thing. I don't know, but I love
Speaker 5: that people. I love that kids know my whole name.
Speaker 5: It's very cute.
Speaker 3: It is very cute.
Speaker 2: I mean, uh, Jensen had a best friend growing up
Speaker 2: whose name was BJ Service. Wow and wow, and none
Speaker 2: of them thought it was funny or knew it was
Speaker 2: funny until college. And I don't know how that's possible.
Speaker 2: But then in college they were like, Jensen was mentioning
Speaker 2: him to somebody else, like, oh, well, my best friend
Speaker 2: BJ Service and they were like you have a friend
Speaker 2: with the name and he was like, yeah, what what
Speaker 2: And then obviously they were like that's so funny, and
Speaker 2: he was like what how did none of us I
Speaker 2: don't know how that.
Speaker 3: I just don't know how that's possible.
Speaker 5: That is so amazing and and and did he He
Speaker 5: must have had a moment BJ where he realized what
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 4: I'm sure for.
Speaker 5: Him what that was like was I know, yeah, he
Speaker 5: had my my moment with the vagina monologues, there was
Speaker 5: something Yeah, sure, he goes.
Speaker 3: That's why they've been saying my name like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you think about I know, we just talked
Speaker 2: about junior high and also junior high was not my
Speaker 2: favorite time in life. I think it's just rough for everyone,
Speaker 2: no matter who you are. But would you have would
Speaker 2: you say you were a confident kid?
Speaker 4: No, Well, it's funny.
Speaker 5: I think I was both things because I was I
Speaker 5: really in social settings. I was not whatsoever that middle
Speaker 5: school feeling. I still talk about that middle school. There's
Speaker 5: a lot of times in life today where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm in middle school right now, Like
Speaker 5: there's this oh, it's so yeah. I don't think that I.
Speaker 5: I wasn't confident. However, when I had a chance to perform,
Speaker 5: then I was like in eighth grade, we had to
Speaker 5: do this like presentations on presidents and I got FDR
Speaker 5: and I just did this whole performance where I dressed
Speaker 5: like Uncle Sam. I built this box that you had
Speaker 5: to put a quarter in, and then the music started
Speaker 5: and I pressed my little you know, tape player, and
Speaker 5: then I like came out and was an animatronic Uncle
Speaker 5: Sam as I presented this whole story on FDR, and
Speaker 5: then I had a whole puppet sequence with FDR and
Speaker 5: then he gets sick and he turns green and all
Speaker 5: these things, and I remember my teacher having to.
Speaker 4: Walk out of the room and I thought that's weird.
Speaker 5: And I was like, oh, he must be laughing like
Speaker 5: like that he had to probably leave to laugh. But
Speaker 5: I in those moments, I was so excited and so
Speaker 5: confident because I was sharing what I had made.
Speaker 4: And I think that's still to this day.
Speaker 5: What is like my favorite thing is like I love
Speaker 5: making things, but I equally love sharing them. And you know,
Speaker 5: I'd write a song in college and then I'd run
Speaker 5: across the dorm and knock on a dorm that you
Speaker 5: want to hear the song I wrote, Like I was
Speaker 5: always just wanting to share this thing immediately and and
Speaker 5: so I think I had confidence to, you know, be
Speaker 5: an animatronic uncle Sam.
Speaker 4: And I also knew that the kids were loving it.
Speaker 5: And I remember being done with my presentation and then
Speaker 5: a kids said if I put another quarter in, will
Speaker 5: you do that again? And I thought, oh, I did it.
Speaker 5: Like so I think those moments, I definitely had confidence.
Speaker 5: But when it came to like anything social, forget it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I didn't even like to ride the bus. I
Speaker 4: was really scared.
Speaker 5: I didn't there were big kids on the bus like
Speaker 5: it was scary to me, and my dad would drive
Speaker 5: me in his electric van. He has an electric company,
Speaker 5: bush Kill Electric, So we'd drive in his van and
Speaker 5: we'd listen to Howard Stern and I thought that was
Speaker 5: so cool and that was making me cool. But then
Speaker 5: there were many times where we had to turn it off.
Speaker 3: Yes exactly.
Speaker 4: He was like, okay, turn it off.
Speaker 3: I think I might have caught something I wasn't supposed
Speaker 3: to hear.
Speaker 2: What was the most amount of trouble you ever got
Speaker 2: into as a kid?
Speaker 4: H You know, I just I didn't. I was too scared.
Speaker 5: I was so fearful, and I was such a like
Speaker 5: a people pleaser. I wanted to please my parents.
Speaker 4: I didn't.
Speaker 5: I mean, maybe the worst thing would be like not
Speaker 5: practicing the piano long enough or something, But that really
Speaker 5: how alame is that I never did.
Speaker 4: I was not a rebel, not a rebel whatsoever.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: It's not even like I skipped practicing. You were like
Speaker 2: not practicing the piano.
Speaker 3: For the full hour. You did it for forty two.
Speaker 2: Minutes and then yeah, and you were like, Nope, that's
Speaker 2: the most amount of trouble I ever got into.
Speaker 5: Okay, I like I sometimes do this thing where I
Speaker 5: go back and I'm like, if I could go back
Speaker 5: in time, like and do high school again or do
Speaker 5: middle school again, Like what would I do?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I just wish I had.
Speaker 5: I wish I had socialized more like and like, I
Speaker 5: think that would have been like, you know, hanging out
Speaker 5: in a parking lot at the Walmart.
Speaker 4: You know, but I wish I had done that.
Speaker 5: I didn't get that experience, but again, you know that's okay,
Speaker 5: But yeah, I just wish I had had a little
Speaker 5: bit more outgoingness toward other people, because I do now.
Speaker 3: I love it hanging out well.
Speaker 2: And even to hear you talk about how you'd make
Speaker 2: a song and then run down the hall and knock
Speaker 2: on the door, it's like when you felt inspired to
Speaker 2: connect with people, you.
Speaker 3: Would reach out and then it would always go well.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of surprising that that amount of feedback
Speaker 2: of like when I do go out of my comfort zone,
Speaker 2: it's always a positive that that feedback didn't make you
Speaker 2: inspired to do it. In other scenarios, you just yeah,
Speaker 2: you just were very choosy about when you did it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, probably maybe a bit of fear of fear of
Speaker 5: failing socially or something. Yeah, but I have a question
Speaker 5: for you because you know you were in La as
Speaker 5: it like what was the where did kids go?
Speaker 4: Like where did teenagers go?
Speaker 5: What was like the hot spot in la the mall
Speaker 5: which which mall?
Speaker 3: The Topanga Mall?
Speaker 4: Oh, how fitting it was perfect.
Speaker 2: I was at the Tapanga Mall every single weekend getting
Speaker 2: my vanilla bean ice blended from coffee bean, going to
Speaker 2: Victoria's Secret.
Speaker 3: I you know, was not had no.
Speaker 2: Reason for lingerie, but we would look at the Bras,
Speaker 2: try on Bras, me and my best friend Jamie, and
Speaker 2: then we'd wander around the food court get food, you know,
Speaker 2: check in at the Charlotte Rous.
Speaker 4: See what there was Charlotte Ruth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the mall. The mall was pretty cool.
Speaker 3: And then like in the Hollywood scene Edd Bevicks.
Speaker 5: Oh, yes, that was on Los Sienaga, right correct. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I first moved to la that was.
Speaker 4: Still there, but I think maybe for like just a
Speaker 4: year and then it went away. But that was that
Speaker 4: was a cool.
Speaker 3: That was a cool hangout. We loved we loved that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, them all and it makes me very happy
Speaker 2: now because like a lot of things, you know, now
Speaker 2: we're moving into the nostalgia of the early aughts. But
Speaker 2: we have just been really inside a big nineties nostalgia craze.
Speaker 2: And as a part of that, I'm also noticing there
Speaker 2: are lots of young cools at the mall. I'm still
Speaker 2: at the mall every weekend. Yeah, because it's it's what
Speaker 2: I knows. And so I bring my kids to the
Speaker 2: Tapanga Mall, same mall, very very sheltered.
Speaker 3: Bring my kids to the Tapanga Mall.
Speaker 2: We play at the arcade we you know, right on
Speaker 2: the little train that's there. We wander, we see movies,
Speaker 2: We go to the Tapanga Social which is now like
Speaker 2: the elevated version of the food court, and we just
Speaker 2: hang out there. And I'm pleasantly surprised by how many
Speaker 2: young people are at the mall.
Speaker 4: That is so fascinating. I mean that mall is gorgeous.
Speaker 5: If you can call them all gorgeous, that's probably one
Speaker 5: of the most gorgeous malls. Like I feel like, uh,
Speaker 5: I yeah, that makes sense, and it's still like a
Speaker 5: comfort for you, and then.
Speaker 4: You get to share that with your kids is pretty cool.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I always wonder I daydream about like probably in
Speaker 5: the time that I was like daydreaming about Hollywood in
Speaker 5: the nineties, I think, what was what was it?
Speaker 4: What was it for someone like you.
Speaker 5: A kid in the nineties, and you know you know,
Speaker 5: And also I should I should mention I also lived
Speaker 5: vicariously through my so called life. Oh that show was
Speaker 5: like I like, I like dreamt of having, you know,
Speaker 5: a cool boyfriend like Jared Leto.
Speaker 3: Yes, so did I Yeah, I was not that cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah I know, I know that that was. You know,
Speaker 2: I joke a lot that my mom is not even
Speaker 2: a joke. My mom would not let me watch nine
Speaker 2: O two one Oh Melrose Place. My mom was very
Speaker 2: much like, oh no, those kids are doing things you
Speaker 2: don't even need to know about, And so I always
Speaker 2: just had to pretend that I knew what my friends
Speaker 2: were talking about at school and they were like, did
Speaker 2: you watch Oh my god, I can't believe Brenda, And
Speaker 2: I was like, I know, And I just had to
Speaker 2: pretend like I knew what was going on because I
Speaker 2: wasn't allowed to watch any of it.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, I understand that I didn't watch nine O
Speaker 5: two and O or and like any of what I
Speaker 5: would consider like yeah, like cool kid shows cool kid shows.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you now about the Monster
Speaker 2: and the Puppet Show. I'm so excited your first kid's book.
Speaker 2: As you know, we are huge fans of your art.
Speaker 2: In our house, I am the proud owner of a
Speaker 2: Kate mccoochee original, and now I get to introduce your
Speaker 2: work to my boys. So tell me where where did
Speaker 2: the idea for this story come from?
Speaker 4: Well, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 5: I you know, it's it really came from from, you know,
Speaker 5: well basically Mo Williams, who I'm a huge, huge fan of,
Speaker 5: and I mean he truly is. He's as wonderful a
Speaker 5: person as his books are so funny and so cool,
Speaker 5: and he is that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: And and when he was helping me figure out this
Speaker 5: book along with his editor Tracy, who's become a great friend,
Speaker 5: he was saying, you know, you really need to have
Speaker 5: a story that matters and like, you know, something that's
Speaker 5: true to you. And this book is a lot about
Speaker 5: protecting your energy and your creativity and like just really
Speaker 5: kind of being true to yourself in a way.
Speaker 4: And I think that is what I'm really proud of.
Speaker 5: Is I feel like even grown ups, if they just
Speaker 5: need a reminder of that. Even though this is a
Speaker 5: kid's book, it really does have that message. And yeah,
Speaker 5: so it really it started with it started this book
Speaker 5: morphed a million times before we got to where we
Speaker 5: are now. But that process alone was very fascinating and
Speaker 5: very very fun. And I knew I wanted, you know,
Speaker 5: this like creature to be creating.
Speaker 4: It was like a monster creating. I wasn't sure.
Speaker 5: And then it became a puppet, which is perfect because
Speaker 5: I am just a big puppet person. Yes, like I said,
Speaker 5: super cool, So I it just kind of made sense.
Speaker 5: And my I have this puppet, Camille that I've had
Speaker 5: for twenty five years now, and so she was really
Speaker 5: an inspiration for this idea of you know, this, this
Speaker 5: creature finding a puppet and then you know what comes
Speaker 5: out of that. But uh and then I also am
Speaker 5: really proud. I don't want to give anything away, but
Speaker 5: there is like a fun little twist at the end,
Speaker 5: and I, you know, I keep saying, it's sort of
Speaker 5: like a you know, my sixth sense, but way different.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 5: But uh, yeah, and Mo, I will say Mo was
Speaker 5: just to work with him was truly a dream.
Speaker 4: And I've always wanted to publish a book.
Speaker 5: I have so many books I've written and illustrated and
Speaker 5: I've never done anything with them.
Speaker 2: Som hmm.
Speaker 5: This is a dream come true. That is happening, you know,
Speaker 5: at forty five now, so I'm really really excited again,
Speaker 5: late Bloomer, I guess yeah.
Speaker 3: We are also a big mo Willems house.
Speaker 2: We were gifted the Piggy and Gerald Elephant and Piggy
Speaker 2: series by Paul Sheer when we first had Adler. That
Speaker 2: was their congratulations on your baby gift, and it was perfect.
Speaker 2: I have read every single one of them at least
Speaker 2: a thousand times. Both my children love every single one
Speaker 2: of them, and I was very excited to see that
Speaker 2: in your book on the last page there is a pigeon,
Speaker 2: and my kids look through every book and want to
Speaker 2: see where the pigeon is at the end of the
Speaker 2: Piggy and Gerald books and there are only two in
Speaker 2: the whole series that, for whatever reason, the pigeon doesn't
Speaker 2: make an appearance. Oh really, and my children asked to
Speaker 2: skip those.
Speaker 5: I I'll try to get to the bottom of that
Speaker 5: for you, because I don't know which ones, but yeah,
Speaker 5: I'll find out for you.
Speaker 2: I'm invited to a party does not have a pigeon
Speaker 2: appearance at the kay and so do I. Uh, and
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of what I'll figure out what
Speaker 2: the other one is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me know, I will because I.
Speaker 2: Have always wondered, like, how did the pigeon not make
Speaker 2: an appearance in these? And if I pull one out,
Speaker 2: Keaton will go is that check the back? Is that
Speaker 2: one that doesn't have pigeon? And I'm like, no pigeons
Speaker 2: in this ways Like, yeah, so it's I was very
Speaker 2: excited to see the pigeon made appearance in yours.
Speaker 4: It is it's a it's an honor to have the pigeon. Uh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's just an honor to be uh, you know,
Speaker 5: associated with this world and that it's an elephant and
Speaker 5: piggy like reading book is like, I don't know, the whole.
Speaker 4: Thing has been so cool. It's very exciting.
Speaker 2: I love that you're creating boundaries and setting boundaries for kids,
Speaker 2: and I love that you specifically said it's even a
Speaker 2: good reminder for adults, because I truly do not think
Speaker 2: I ever really mastered the concept of boundaries until I
Speaker 2: was in my thirties. Yeah, I in my thirties. All
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I started looking around, going, why do
Speaker 2: I have all of these situations that pop up where
Speaker 2: eventually something makes me very uncomfortable?
Speaker 3: And I just realized, like, wow, I don't think. I
Speaker 3: don't think.
Speaker 2: I was very specifically taught that I can and should
Speaker 2: create my own boundaries around things that I'm comfortable with.
Speaker 2: I think you mentioned being a people pleaser. Being a
Speaker 2: child actor, it's almost impossible that you don't become a
Speaker 2: people pleaser and that you don't always look to others
Speaker 2: for what you should be.
Speaker 3: Doing to make them happy.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so you're very rarely in touch with what
Speaker 2: you want or need or what makes you comfortable, but
Speaker 2: you can pretty much immediately tell what other people need
Speaker 2: and want for you to do. And so it was
Speaker 2: really the first time in my life I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I can set boundaries. So I agree with you that
Speaker 2: although this is a book for kids, parents and children
Speaker 2: will have something to gain from this wonderful book. So
Speaker 2: I'm really excited for the world to be able to
Speaker 2: get their hands on it.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like I similar to you. I'm kind
Speaker 5: of new to being aware of it. I think I
Speaker 5: think having a kid really helps, for at least help
Speaker 5: me to go, like, Okay, this is time with my
Speaker 5: son as he's small, and it really makes you go, Okay,
Speaker 5: what do I say yes to?
Speaker 4: What do how?
Speaker 5: You know, because you know, it's great to be able
Speaker 5: to spend so much time and be there for him,
Speaker 5: and yeah, I think but also just in life, you know,
Speaker 5: regardless of like a kid's schedule or whatever else, Like,
Speaker 5: it's really good to know what you need as a person.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's a yeah, it's a hard thing to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it takes practice. I guess I'm not quite there
Speaker 5: yet to be honest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it still takes practice.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I agree, I'm but but at least to
Speaker 2: have the recognition that we need them and we can
Speaker 2: do it, it is good. It's like it's in the
Speaker 2: forefront of our minds. Now since becoming a mother, you
Speaker 2: have released a kid's book and a kid's album. Did
Speaker 2: you expect to find so much inspiration in motherhood?
Speaker 4: You know, I hoped I would.
Speaker 5: I like, you know, I dreamt of having like a
Speaker 5: room of Legos, like I like, like I just want
Speaker 5: to like play Legos.
Speaker 4: And then it was like a reason to play. I mean,
Speaker 4: I still played legos.
Speaker 5: Yeah, having a kid, but I think I yeah, I
Speaker 5: The kid's album came about in kind of a like
Speaker 5: I had really really bad postpartum depression and I had
Speaker 5: Mikey in twenty twenty and in January twenty twenty, and
Speaker 5: then I knew something was deeply wrong because I'm I
Speaker 5: always just operating at a level that I wasn't ever
Speaker 5: accustomed to.
Speaker 4: It was really hard and bad.
Speaker 5: So I went to a doctor and who had been
Speaker 5: recommended to me for postpartum, and I said, I think
Speaker 5: I might need, you know, some medication or something to
Speaker 5: get me out of this fog and and and the
Speaker 5: woman was like, no, you're fine, you just have the
Speaker 5: baby blues. And then we went into lockdown for COVID
Speaker 5: and so I had postpartum for oh gosh, probably a
Speaker 5: year and a half, and oh man, I was writing
Speaker 5: songs for him, but actually a lot of those songs
Speaker 5: on the record were also from like twenty years ago,
Speaker 5: Like they're like songs I've been writing my whole life.
Speaker 5: And my husband was so sweet because he could see
Speaker 5: that I was struggling, and he said, why don't we
Speaker 5: record your album? And luckily he's a music producer, so yeah,
Speaker 5: so Jake was like, let's just go, let's just start recording.
Speaker 5: Let's just like see how that feels. And it was
Speaker 5: just a really sweet thing for him to do for
Speaker 5: me because that was really when I could start to
Speaker 5: feel it shift, you know, my Like I was like, oh, right,
Speaker 5: I do this, I make.
Speaker 4: Things like I can do this.
Speaker 5: And and then also it was it was at a
Speaker 5: point in the pandemic where we were able to have
Speaker 5: friends to come in and play different instruments and everything
Speaker 5: just started feeling a little better. So my Kids album
Speaker 5: kind of came out of that, and so in almost
Speaker 5: a different way of you know, having a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, different type of inspiration, yes, exactly.
Speaker 5: But I'm really like making that album was just so
Speaker 5: much fun. And we were all in a like we
Speaker 5: did it live to tape, so we were all in
Speaker 5: the same room and I'm singing, and our friend Brendan
Speaker 5: was on drums, and my husband's on bass, and my
Speaker 5: friend Sean's and guitar were just like in a circle
Speaker 5: playing and recording, and it felt so alive and like
Speaker 5: just really fresh and fun. And I think I'm very
Speaker 5: proud of the album, so you should be thanks. But
Speaker 5: then and then on the day that the album came out,
Speaker 5: I found out I had lung cancer.
Speaker 3: So that was a whole thing.
Speaker 5: But then that brings a whole other you know, appreciation
Speaker 5: for life. And I know you went through your version
Speaker 5: of that and how lucky are we? And you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: I know it gives a whole new perspective on things.
Speaker 2: You know, absolutely, how are you doing now? What was
Speaker 2: your treatment and how's everything looking for you?
Speaker 4: I'm doing really great.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna knock on my head because you know, it's
Speaker 5: like there's always that little fear in the back. But
Speaker 5: I did just have my six month scan last week,
Speaker 5: so I leave feeling like, okay, I'm okay right now.
Speaker 5: But I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I've thought that's
Speaker 5: insane because I've never smoked a cigarette in my life.
Speaker 5: That couldn't be And you know, to this point, I've
Speaker 5: talked about this a little on like my Instagram and stuff.
Speaker 5: But I they told me I needed to go to
Speaker 5: the lung doctor because they had found a spot when
Speaker 5: I got a routine heart scan and they said, you
Speaker 5: looks like you have something dangerous in your lung. And
Speaker 5: I just thought, there's no way, Like, I've never smoked
Speaker 5: a cigarette in my life. So I didn't go to
Speaker 5: the doctor, and I let a lot of time go by,
Speaker 5: and and then to my GP, my great doctor just
Speaker 5: who's on top of it. He called me, like, you know,
Speaker 5: months later and said, what are you doing. You haven't
Speaker 5: gone to the doctor. You need to go to the
Speaker 5: lung doctor. And I said, oh, really okay, and it
Speaker 5: thank God because I you know, and it but they
Speaker 5: ended up taking twenty percent of my right lung out and.
Speaker 4: That was all I had to do.
Speaker 5: I mean, I say, yeah, oh, the recovery was.
Speaker 4: I kept being like, I'm fine, I'm totally fine.
Speaker 5: But I i'd say it took a good six months
Speaker 5: to feel like I was kind of put together again.
Speaker 5: So I was very tired. But that is a very lucky,
Speaker 5: lucky scenario that it was found. Really it was able
Speaker 5: to just you know, be taken out and I didn't
Speaker 5: need to do anything else.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I've been cancer.
Speaker 5: Free basically since I had the surgery, and it's been
Speaker 5: two years now, so I feel very lucky.
Speaker 4: How how are you and how is your health similar?
Speaker 3: Similar?
Speaker 2: I only had to have two lumpectomies in twenty days
Speaker 2: of radiation.
Speaker 4: So oh that's one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't need chemo, and I have had multiple
Speaker 2: mammograms since my surgeries and no evidence of disease.
Speaker 3: So yes, pleased to say. Also, same boat.
Speaker 2: There's always that tiny little bit of fear in between,
Speaker 2: you know, they think they call it scanxiety. You know,
Speaker 2: around the time of getting another scan, you're always like, eh, because,
Speaker 2: like you, I had zero thought in my mind that
Speaker 2: there could be anything wrong. I had just had a
Speaker 2: mammogram the year before and it was clear, like and
Speaker 2: I was you know, I was like, I'm in my
Speaker 2: early forties. As far as I was aware, breast cancer
Speaker 2: doesn't run in my family. I had one aunt who
Speaker 2: had also the exact same thing I ended up being
Speaker 2: diagnosed with. But it was like she even the way
Speaker 2: she talked about it was like, it's barely even cancer.
Speaker 2: It's pre cancer, it's it's so it wasn't in my
Speaker 2: mind that I would have any reason to have a concern.
Speaker 2: And so when you're like, wow, you you can have
Speaker 2: zero concern and still have cancer. Yeah, So yeah, there's
Speaker 2: still some anxiety around there, but ultimately I'm in the
Speaker 2: same boat. Healthy, doing well and cancer free.
Speaker 4: So yes, I'm so happy. I'm happy.
Speaker 5: So yeah, talking about it is always a reminder, you know,
Speaker 5: we're we're so fortunate and and I think you know,
Speaker 5: for me, I like, I'm sure you probably felt the
Speaker 5: same way, where it's like, Okay, I still get to
Speaker 5: do this, I get to do this. Is I I
Speaker 5: remember someone asking if I was really upset, and I
Speaker 5: was like, no, I feel like I won the lottery
Speaker 5: or something like, like how lucky that this was almost
Speaker 5: a fluke in the way mine was found? And so yeah,
Speaker 5: it just really is a great reminder that to appreciate everything,
Speaker 5: you know, and yeah, I'm so glad.
Speaker 4: I'm so glad you're doing well. And likewise, yeah, and
Speaker 4: for anyone listening who's putting off any doctors, just go
Speaker 4: go check it out, you know, do the blood work,
Speaker 4: do the things.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, schedule the appointment, may make the time,
Speaker 2: prioritize yourself.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 2: I would always rather know than not know. And there's
Speaker 2: so many things now, with so many different types of
Speaker 2: cancers that the earlier, you know, the amount of treatments
Speaker 2: out there compared to even just ten years ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's night and day.
Speaker 5: So yeah, and I always say to friends like, just
Speaker 5: get like you said, get the information, just like, get
Speaker 5: all the information and then you have it and you know,
Speaker 5: and then you can and hopefully everything's fine.
Speaker 4: And if you have a little weird thing, then you'll
Speaker 4: go down that path and figure it out.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just try to, Yeah, to stay on top
Speaker 4: of it is a good thing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: There was no way I was going to hang out
Speaker 2: with Kate and only do one episode. So this Friday
Speaker 2: she's back for a bonus episode as we look to you,
Speaker 2: our listeners for an embarrassing childhood story sent via email.
Speaker 3: So make sure you have.
Speaker 2: Subscribed to the dedicated team beat feed on whatever streaming
Speaker 2: service you use for podcasts. Way, whenever a new episode drops,
Speaker 2: it's in your library, no questions asked, And I'd love
Speaker 2: to hear your childhood cringe. So send a somewhat concise
Speaker 2: voice memo to Teenbeatpod at gmail dot com and next
Speaker 2: thing you know, we could be playing it on a
Speaker 2: future episode. Plus, Kate mccuchi's first children's book, The Monster
Speaker 2: and Puppet Show is available now go pick it up.
Speaker 2: Maybe even get a few as gifts for the kids
Speaker 2: in your life. Learn more on her Instagram at Kate mccuochie.
Speaker 2: Teen Beat is an iHeart podcast produced and hosted by
Speaker 2: Danielle Fischel. Executive producers Jensenkarp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in
Speaker 2: charge of production Danielle Romo, producer and editor Tara Soudboch.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by Mark Coppis Yes that Mark Coppus.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Instagram at Teenbeatpod