Speaker 1: I could get into it maybe if there were, but well,
Speaker 1: more Taylor swifts really football and a financial.
Speaker 2: Incentive for us. I definitely cared about a lot of
Speaker 2: sports for a lot of bad boyfriends in my past.
Speaker 1: By the way, I've stood in the rain with more
Speaker 1: men in Asuran like this, with the wind and the rain.
Speaker 1: It's going. I love this. I swear to.
Speaker 2: God please like me. Like me.
Speaker 1: I'm a cool girl who likes sports for money. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm mini driver. I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was
Speaker 1: originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask
Speaker 1: each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other
Speaker 1: player's true nature. In asking different people the same set
Speaker 1: of questions, you can make observations about which truths appear
Speaker 1: to be universal. And it made me wonder, what if
Speaker 1: these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater
Speaker 1: depths would be revealed if I asked these questions as
Speaker 1: conversation starters. So I adapted Pru's questionnaire and I wrote
Speaker 1: my own seven questions that I personally think are pertinent
Speaker 1: to a person's story. They are when and where were
Speaker 1: you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself.
Speaker 1: What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What
Speaker 1: question would you most like answered, What person, place, or
Speaker 1: experience has shaped you the most? What would be your
Speaker 1: last meal? And can you tell me something in your
Speaker 1: life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And I've
Speaker 1: gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I
Speaker 1: am honored and humbled to have had the chance to
Speaker 1: engage with. You may not hear their answers to all
Speaker 1: seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which
Speaker 1: questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
Speaker 1: or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
Speaker 1: today is comedian, political commentator and author Meant the Beat,
Speaker 1: the longest running correspondent on The Daily Show. Has made
Speaker 1: me and probably you scream with laughter on that show
Speaker 1: and on her own series Full Frontal, which ran for
Speaker 1: seven seasons. I was thrilled to hear that she began
Speaker 1: her broadcasting career in the attic of her house when
Speaker 1: she was nine, with a self tape show called News
Speaker 1: for Goofs. We talked about everything from googling crop tops
Speaker 1: for fifty year old terrible idea and wondering if our
Speaker 1: digital imprint, i e. Our search history goes with us
Speaker 1: when we die and etherically counts against us. SAM is
Speaker 1: a treasure and a pleasure I hope you.
Speaker 2: Enjoy once we're through talking that I'm going to the train.
Speaker 1: That's your full for having more than one child. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's really sounds like a new problem because me problem,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of schedules to schedule.
Speaker 2: And I'm in service to them. By the way, in
Speaker 2: service to.
Speaker 1: You're essentially a nun mom. Yeah, that it is like
Speaker 1: giving your life over to an institution.
Speaker 2: I don't even think about it anymore. I just disassociate.
Speaker 2: I just put on an audio book and then I
Speaker 2: just drive. It's just like pick this one up here,
Speaker 2: that one's going there, this friend is coming over, do
Speaker 2: the what's for dinner? What do we But it's it's
Speaker 2: all good. It's all everybody's in a good state. And
Speaker 2: apparently everybody upstairs decided to move furniture because I hear
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good. I enjoy that.
Speaker 2: Let's drag some chairs.
Speaker 1: A podcast. Let's do it. Well. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: my first question, which is where and when were you happiest.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh my god, they are literally dragging.
Speaker 1: First, they really are dragging, But it's fine as long
Speaker 1: as we acknowledge it.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think they might be vacuuming, so I don't
Speaker 2: want to stop it when we're happiest.
Speaker 1: When I realized my kids were cleaning the fucking house.
Speaker 2: When they impromptu started vacuuming.
Speaker 1: Someone's coming over, someone's coming out, that I wouldn't just
Speaker 1: be doing that.
Speaker 2: That's what's nita to get the house clean. I actually
Speaker 2: can't pinpoint a single day, but I am my most
Speaker 2: happy when I am with my family and when we
Speaker 2: are doing something all together with enthusiasm, like a vacation
Speaker 2: or a big dinner. It's such a cliche, but I
Speaker 2: really feel like I know where everybody is. I feel
Speaker 2: very safe. We're all being nourished, and we all get
Speaker 2: along and we're laughing. It's those moments.
Speaker 1: I think, did you have that when you were growing up?
Speaker 2: No, I'm an only child. Ah, I'm an only child,
Speaker 2: and I certainly was loved, but each corner of my
Speaker 2: family's very small, so I never had noise or chaos, Like,
Speaker 2: I never learned how to argue. I never learned how
Speaker 2: to fight constructively because I was like a miniature adult
Speaker 2: at a really early age. So I love chaos.
Speaker 1: And how many children do you have three? And are
Speaker 1: they at odds with each other often or not?
Speaker 2: Really? Not really, they don't legitimately fight very often. They
Speaker 2: make fun of one another nearly constantly, like ninety nine
Speaker 2: percent of the time they are making fun of one another.
Speaker 1: So will you like Rupert Pupkin in the King of Comedy,
Speaker 1: like in the Basement by yourself, like bomb shut up,
Speaker 1: like just doing your stand up when you were a kid.
Speaker 1: Is that how you came to be so weirdly funny?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm definitely weird.
Speaker 1: That's you know what I mean. I mean right, it
Speaker 1: is articulate and surprising and specific. And now I'm loving
Speaker 1: the idea of you like in the Basement. Now I
Speaker 1: want you to be Rupert Pupkin.
Speaker 2: I don't know that it turned out really well for him.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He wrote a book, he got out
Speaker 1: of jail eventually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, this is funny. I don't often talk about it,
Speaker 2: and I do still have it. I used to do
Speaker 2: fake news broadcasts when I was like six or seven,
Speaker 2: and I have a cassette tape still because I had
Speaker 2: a little tape recorder with a microphone, so I would
Speaker 2: either surreptitiously record my family and then transcribe their very
Speaker 2: very mundane conversations about dinner. But I also would do
Speaker 2: fake news broadcasts of like fake weather reports, and I
Speaker 2: called it news for Goofs and I have it. I
Speaker 2: have a news for Goofs cassette. I don't know where
Speaker 2: it is right now.
Speaker 1: I can't find you need to find it? I do
Speaker 1: you need to find it? Immediate news for goos. Was
Speaker 1: it for a specific audience or was it just for
Speaker 1: your own solitary delectation? Would you just like play it back?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I just played it. I wasn't for anyone
Speaker 2: or anything, And I don't believe that anyone ever listened
Speaker 2: to it, nor should they. It was like a precocious
Speaker 2: but I was like quiet, just like kind of a
Speaker 2: quiet little that.
Speaker 1: It was like a news report. You weren't like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is Sam. You know you weren't doing hot girl
Speaker 1: stuff you're doing You're doing the news report.
Speaker 2: No. No, it was like thunder showers are rolling in
Speaker 2: for the next thirty six hours, so make sure you
Speaker 2: take your umbrella, Like really not I just I.
Speaker 1: Love that story so much. I knew that you came
Speaker 1: from the basement.
Speaker 2: Well, actually I did have more, more of an attic.
Speaker 2: We had well you know, the same tomato from the
Speaker 2: hub of the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean attic exactly. It was away and it
Speaker 1: was private behavior. Behavior that you did that I secretly
Speaker 1: must have known made you partly who you are.
Speaker 2: We lived with my mom and it was a for
Speaker 2: sure haunted house. It was all divided up into little apartments.
Speaker 2: It had been a hospital during the war.
Speaker 1: That's creepy. That's very creepy.
Speaker 2: And my mother gave me the top floor apartment to
Speaker 2: just do my own only child things.
Speaker 1: It was the way they put the people. They just
Speaker 1: didn't want to hear screaming. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: They were like, we should put her in the belfry,
Speaker 2: should we?
Speaker 1: Just?
Speaker 2: And so I had a little apartment where I could
Speaker 2: see all the other children getting fresh air and like
Speaker 2: playing in the streets. But I had my ABBA records
Speaker 2: and your recording, fully entertaining myself and totally fine with it,
Speaker 2: not like yearning to be on the street playing ballock.
Speaker 1: No wonder you love chaos because you were basically just
Speaker 1: sort of like flowers in the attic with the tape.
Speaker 2: Recorder, totally, totally, just expressing myself to myself with love, and.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's why you like that the happiness.
Speaker 1: Of course, you grew up in a haunted, spooky ex hospital,
Speaker 1: sequested by yourself with the tape recorder. Of course you
Speaker 1: like family life and the noise. And you probably have
Speaker 1: a sweet dog.
Speaker 2: We have two cats. Is busy and I do yearn
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: What quality do you like least about yourself?
Speaker 2: I think it varies. I will say this, it varies.
Speaker 1: From it, but it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I like that it's not consistent. I don't actually spend
Speaker 2: too much time beating myself up. It's too chaotic to
Speaker 2: worry about. I wish I was less of a people pleaser.
Speaker 2: I'm better at it now. But I have been such
Speaker 2: a pushover and so unable to love you.
Speaker 1: I find that so hard to believe, given like the
Speaker 1: way in which you have engaged with sort of the
Speaker 1: culture and with issues and yourself, Like, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So you're never afraid to take things on. It has
Speaker 1: seemed to me that's.
Speaker 2: The side of myself that I have to turn on.
Speaker 2: It's like isn't that so weird? I don't think about
Speaker 2: it that much, but I'm definitely I wouldn't go out
Speaker 2: in the world and just speak extemporaneously about something that
Speaker 2: I feel passionately about. It's all very thoughtful, it's all
Speaker 2: very curated, it's all very intentional, and I definitely have
Speaker 2: to divorce the shy side of myself, you know what.
Speaker 2: That's it. I wish I was more of a joiner.
Speaker 2: I wish I was less shy.
Speaker 1: Gosh, that's really interesting. I wish I was more of
Speaker 1: a joiner.
Speaker 2: Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: Did you not feel like when you're on your show
Speaker 1: and everything that you had joined with all these millions
Speaker 1: and millions and millions of people who are watching and
Speaker 1: who listen to you and engaged with you, did that
Speaker 1: not fit you? Did that?
Speaker 2: And did that to me was like a beautiful communion.
Speaker 2: That was like almost that was a very shared experience.
Speaker 2: I always thought about the audience, and especially when doing
Speaker 2: live shows and things like that.
Speaker 1: I love that you just said it was like a communion.
Speaker 2: It was especially having a live audience. It felt like
Speaker 2: sharing something with the people in the room, and I
Speaker 2: think we all really got into it. It was like
Speaker 2: there was a back and forth I was taking from
Speaker 2: the audience they were taking from me, and there was
Speaker 2: a fluidity there. I wish I was more just like
Speaker 2: physically a joiner, Like I would get really stressed out
Speaker 2: if everybody's gone for a hike and then everyone's like,
Speaker 2: let's jump off this cliff into the water. I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh no, we jumping off a cliff. What am I
Speaker 2: gonna do? And then I really like really worries me
Speaker 2: and I get like almost become a different person where
Speaker 2: I just get so interior and I'm like, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm gonna jump off the clip, I'm gonna fall, and
Speaker 2: my head's gonna smash open on the rocks.
Speaker 1: Do you think that stems from being having been, you know,
Speaker 1: a solitary child, like an only child who then who's
Speaker 1: an introvert, but then finds their way into a deeply
Speaker 1: extrovert job and life. So was that really conscious? Like
Speaker 1: did you go i'm a shy person, I'm going to fall.
Speaker 1: Most shy people will go I'm a shy person, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to the library.
Speaker 2: It was really accidental. Don't you think this is pretty
Speaker 2: common with performers you like have a very shy side,
Speaker 2: and where you can really find your back in a
Speaker 2: space is in front of people. You can let it
Speaker 2: all go. You're very free, and then you kind of
Speaker 2: go back to yourself and it's I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: an exercise in a different kind of It's just like
Speaker 2: flexing different muscles. It's a different type of freedom. And
Speaker 2: I love it, but I don't live like that. My
Speaker 2: close friends can all see it because before an event
Speaker 2: or something like that, if you know, if I'm speaking
Speaker 2: at something or doing a performance, I'm so mellow, you
Speaker 2: would not imagine that a switch would get flipped at
Speaker 2: any point. People would observe me and think something is
Speaker 2: terribly wrong, like just how quiet and calm I am,
Speaker 2: And then the switch turns and I'm completely in show
Speaker 2: mode and it's like one second. It takes one second.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just practice or muscle memory. And I like
Speaker 2: it and I feel free and I feel great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. No, I think it's I
Speaker 1: think you're right. I think a lot of performance have that.
Speaker 1: And then I think it's very difficult when you want
Speaker 1: to switch it off. But when you're in the supermarket,
Speaker 1: people don't want it to be switched off. They want
Speaker 1: it to be switched.
Speaker 2: On, and they want you to be right.
Speaker 1: I think there's quite a lot of discord that comes
Speaker 1: from that. It's probably why you don't see, you know,
Speaker 1: the Kardashians, Dan and Gelson's much.
Speaker 2: I feel like they're there. They're just standing the headies.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're just.
Speaker 2: They just put like an old bag on and then
Speaker 2: go to the supermarket. I mean, you have to want
Speaker 2: to do your own supermarket shopping, right.
Speaker 1: I think some people just don't. I think it's like
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly go to the supermarket. I did see
Speaker 1: Angelina Jolee once in the parking lot of the market
Speaker 1: near my house in Malibu, and there was a throng
Speaker 1: of people. She had a kid on her hip and
Speaker 1: a security guy who was holding the shopping. She was
Speaker 1: trying to get the kid in the car and he
Speaker 1: was trying to get the shopping in the back. And
Speaker 1: there's a tree, like a throng of people standing just
Speaker 1: watching her struggle with her toilet paper and her kid.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, I suppose, as I'm remembering this, I must
Speaker 1: be like them.
Speaker 2: Does she's one of those I.
Speaker 1: Was part of the throng, and I knew it was wrong,
Speaker 1: and I knew it was awful. I knew, but I
Speaker 1: do remember thinking, God, that is just not what you want.
Speaker 1: You want there to be rules around it. Switched on.
Speaker 1: We've all agreed it's on right now, and now I'm
Speaker 1: going to switch it off, and like, please, let me
Speaker 1: live my life with it switched off with It doesn't.
Speaker 2: Work like that. It doesn't work like that. If you're
Speaker 2: Angeline famous, that's next level. When people would pay money
Speaker 2: for photographs of you handling your toilet paper.
Speaker 1: That's it's a different level of engagement. And yeah, then
Speaker 1: you probably just stop. I never saw her again.
Speaker 2: That's when you move to France. Then you're like, I
Speaker 2: gotta go where people also care, but they won't.
Speaker 1: I've got to go and make rose.
Speaker 2: I've got I've got to go and make my lambruscos I.
Speaker 1: Just can't do the shopping anymore. I've got to go
Speaker 1: and make rose. Should I feel like that most days
Speaker 1: I can't go to the shops anymore. I just need
Speaker 1: to get back to my vineyard. I have to.
Speaker 2: I just have to check on the grapes. Come, please
Speaker 2: just check on them.
Speaker 1: Hello, my babies, Hello.
Speaker 2: My Yes, Oh I want to. I want to check
Speaker 2: on the garden that way in the future, like, hello, girls,
Speaker 2: what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Hi down Finians, Good morning. Oh it's just mom. She's
Speaker 1: just talking to the tomatoes again. So what relationship, real
Speaker 1: or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 2: This is an easy one for me. It's Coach and
Speaker 2: Jammy Taylor in Friday Night Lights.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever seen a couple like a
Speaker 2: happy couple rendered better in TV or film. I really don't.
Speaker 1: Did you love that they were hot and that they
Speaker 1: just like the way they loved each other? Or was
Speaker 1: it the small town America of it, the fact that
Speaker 1: it felt real? Like what part of it did you love?
Speaker 2: It felt real to me? Well, that they are I
Speaker 2: mean that's not we're not they're hot, they're smoking hot,
Speaker 2: but absolutely beautiful, just like the aspirational beauty aside, Okay,
Speaker 2: I actually felt that I was seeing a couple. It
Speaker 2: felt powerfully realistically rendered. Maybe like an idealized version, I
Speaker 2: guess a little bit, but I could relate to the
Speaker 2: way they talk to each other. There was an intimacy,
Speaker 2: they didn't always agree on things. It just felt like
Speaker 2: the normal functioning of it. You just so seldom see
Speaker 2: in television, in film, in art, just kind of a
Speaker 2: healthy couple doing healthy couple stuff, talking about things relating
Speaker 2: to each other.
Speaker 1: It's quite hard for it to be interesting, and yet
Speaker 1: that show was. It was really engaging, and it was
Speaker 1: really interesting. You're right, it's very difficult just to show
Speaker 1: a nice, normal relationship because now a days, somebody has
Speaker 1: to be a spy, and that pants have to be
Speaker 1: on fire, has to be so all.
Speaker 2: Has to be extra. There has to be like a
Speaker 2: terrible couple secret that they're both holding onto or something
Speaker 2: devastating that happened to them that colors every interaction forever.
Speaker 2: And it sometimes is just like I'm married to my
Speaker 2: friend and we've been together a really long time and
Speaker 2: we like it being around each other most.
Speaker 1: I think that was a reflection. I don't know what
Speaker 1: year of Friday Night Lights began, but I wonder if
Speaker 1: that when I think back on it now we are
Speaker 1: not in two thousand and six, what was the friendly
Speaker 1: face of a Republican government, you know, before Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: Like it feels like it was a far more kind
Speaker 1: of Bucolic America. I guess I mean, all the subprime
Speaker 1: mortgages hadn't destroyed working class people in America.
Speaker 2: That was a right life.
Speaker 1: It's just a bear. It was right. But it's interesting,
Speaker 1: like when I think that, I would have thought it
Speaker 1: was longer ago than two thousand and six, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I think you see stuff like that on television now
Speaker 1: because genuinely, I feel like the sort of nuts level
Speaker 1: of television right now reflects what's everywhere. Right, there's this
Speaker 1: amped up feeling like even the relationship shows that are genius,
Speaker 1: like Mister and Missus Smith are still oh, tightened, tight
Speaker 1: and tightened.
Speaker 2: Everything is operatic, and there's blood and there's fury.
Speaker 1: Yeah, blood, rage and disparity.
Speaker 2: We also weren't like incentivized to be so angry on
Speaker 2: social media, like that was all that wasn't really banging
Speaker 2: yet it was it wasn't really I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2: I feel like I got my first iPhone in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, two thousand and six, I.
Speaker 1: Got It's so funny. I still had a BlackBerry when
Speaker 1: Henry was born, and he was born in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. I was blackberrying hard. I wasn't doing anything.
Speaker 1: There wasn't I think maybe that actually is exactly what
Speaker 1: it is. We didn't have this pub onslaught, so that
Speaker 1: in a way, television was a bit more focused and
Speaker 1: we haven't been ruined by I don't know. It feels
Speaker 1: like a very different time, although.
Speaker 2: I mean it was the Iraq Warren we were mad
Speaker 2: as you're.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm just stuffing that under the carpet. You're right,
Speaker 1: But we didn't have the internet in the way that
Speaker 1: we have now to amplify it's horror of what was
Speaker 1: going on. So I was still reading the newspaper and
Speaker 1: you would read it in the same way that one
Speaker 1: metabolized news. Differently when I'd read it in the newspaper
Speaker 1: and it was quite literally this object in front of
Speaker 1: me in paper. Now, when I turn on my phone
Speaker 1: on my computer and it is videos and TikTok of
Speaker 1: people who are there and it is happening in this moment,
Speaker 1: is a very different response to the news we are.
Speaker 2: You really are metabolizing the most horrifying images and realities time,
Speaker 2: which really it's devastating.
Speaker 1: I mean on every part of everybody's life.
Speaker 2: I think yes, and I do think, like thinking back
Speaker 2: to that time and at that time, I worked on
Speaker 2: The Daily Show, and we would do pieces about the
Speaker 2: Iraq War, like we would do pieces about George Bush
Speaker 2: and how bad of a president he was, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was revelatory to our audience. They were like, oh,
Speaker 2: I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 1: But that show was also like the Revolutionary Like it
Speaker 1: was suddenly comedy. Is politics politics as comedy, but suddenly
Speaker 1: we were. It was a way in which every single
Speaker 1: person who watched The Daily Show could understand and somehow
Speaker 1: that it was articulating something that I don't think we'd
Speaker 1: ever had to articulate before, because we'd never know. That
Speaker 1: was certainly the first war that I lived through consciously
Speaker 1: as it were.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we were learning about it all with the
Speaker 2: same toolbox, and now we are just seeing it like
Speaker 2: if you pick up your phone alerts you they're like, great,
Speaker 2: But do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Because I know that perhaps it is specious to say
Speaker 1: that it was like the friendly of us, because you're right,
Speaker 1: the Iraq War was an abomination. However, in terms of
Speaker 1: how it was engaged and justified, I still would say
Speaker 1: that given Trump, George Bush seems like a far friendlier
Speaker 1: face of Republicans and something that somehow there could be
Speaker 1: some reaching across the aisle, and that the extraordinary gulf
Speaker 1: between that and where the Republican Party is now sort
Speaker 1: of feels like a rubicon has been crossed.
Speaker 2: We've crossed so many I am no, George Bush, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna I can't. Ten thousand red lines have been crossed,
Speaker 2: Like I don't know what. I can't believe the things
Speaker 2: that have been said and done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't, and we don't have to talk about it.
Speaker 1: We're not going to give any oxygen to that nonsense
Speaker 1: because I just want to think about you reporting on
Speaker 1: the news in your attic. Actually, oh my god, how
Speaker 1: did I not make the connection between that young woman
Speaker 1: and then you on the Daily She's crazy. Essentially, you
Speaker 1: got to get the news for goofs. You got to
Speaker 1: get it, and it maybe needs to get back on
Speaker 1: the Daily Show.
Speaker 2: In a way, I invented the Daily Show and in
Speaker 2: my belfry in nineteen seventy seven. I'm just not getting
Speaker 2: any credit for it at all.
Speaker 1: Sweet Listen, I was the first. John Stewart should.
Speaker 2: Think it was the first.
Speaker 1: Whatever what question would you most like answered?
Speaker 2: Oh? What happens to us when we die?
Speaker 1: What do you think happens?
Speaker 2: I am a person of faith, and I can't really articulate,
Speaker 2: but I definitely think that this is really everybody's like
Speaker 2: she's going back to her belfrey and after I say
Speaker 2: these words, I'm going back come climbing. Those are rickety stairs,
Speaker 2: and I'll be there until I'll be there. If theories
Speaker 2: putting them all up on a chukboard, I'm hoping this
Speaker 2: is my hope. I don't know what I believe anymore.
Speaker 2: My hope is that we sort of we exit our
Speaker 2: earthly bodies and shoin some wonderful energy field where we
Speaker 2: just kind of exist in an astral plane. I favor them.
Speaker 2: Just the concept of a multiverse or like our energy
Speaker 2: doesn't just dissipate, that it goes somewhere else, that it
Speaker 2: goes where it's needed is kind of my hope.
Speaker 1: Do you think that it is reused or do you
Speaker 1: think that there is like an energy stream that exists
Speaker 1: that is where our energy is uploaded into some sort
Speaker 1: of etheric cloud.
Speaker 2: I like that it sounds so technological when you say uploaded.
Speaker 2: I know I want to upload myself to the cloud.
Speaker 2: That's I feel like, you know, I write as well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take my browsing history with me. Actually,
Speaker 2: just as I turned my computer on before joining for
Speaker 2: this wonderful conversation that I'm thoroughly enjoying, I was like,
Speaker 2: I have to tell many what my last Google search
Speaker 2: was before I joined this, because I haven't used this
Speaker 2: computer in maybe a week or two. It was crap
Speaker 2: tops for women over fifty, Thank you for coming to
Speaker 2: my ted talk. It was one sentence, did you well?
Speaker 1: Very important rejoinder to that is did you find something?
Speaker 1: And what does it look like? Okay, are you wearing it?
Speaker 2: I will never wear it, but I did buy one?
Speaker 2: Did you? It's never going on my body and I'm
Speaker 2: not wearing it. It's awful.
Speaker 1: Did you buy it to wear with like high waisted
Speaker 1: jeans or are you? I did? And I like that idea.
Speaker 1: I do. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 2: I think that what's going to happen? And it's so
Speaker 2: up there. It's sitting in my glass set upstairs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's mocking me. I look at it. It's floral. It's
Speaker 2: going to make me look like just that I'm about
Speaker 2: three feet tall. That's my theory. Like, I'm going to
Speaker 2: feel really good about myself. I'm going to put it
Speaker 2: all together. I'm going to walk out the door going
Speaker 2: I'm doing it, and then I'm going to see my
Speaker 2: reflection somewhere unexpected, and I'm going to go, this is
Speaker 2: a fun house mirror, right like, this is a weirdly
Speaker 2: positioned piece of glass. And then I'll catch it again
Speaker 2: and at the next doorfront and go, oh no, no,
Speaker 2: I am a three foot tall woman, So maybe I'll
Speaker 2: sell it.
Speaker 1: Are your kids boys or girls?
Speaker 2: Two girls? One boy?
Speaker 1: Would they wear it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: No? Do they even know you bought it?
Speaker 2: They don't know I bought it. They're going to be ashamed.
Speaker 2: And actually, my eldest daughter is going into fashion. She's
Speaker 2: going to college for fashion design, and so she very
Speaker 2: picky and intelligent about style, and so it's helpless.
Speaker 1: Maybe could one of your animals wear it?
Speaker 2: It will fit my cat perfectly. It will be like
Speaker 2: a full sized ramper on her, but she's going to
Speaker 2: pull it off.
Speaker 1: I just like the idea of recycle. I like recycled energy,
Speaker 1: recycled crop tops. And I do think our browser history
Speaker 1: should go with us when we die, that all of
Speaker 1: our digital everything, our digital imprint, should go with us
Speaker 1: into the etherical.
Speaker 2: Cloud, but you have to carry it with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then I think you can also, Like when
Speaker 1: you get there, I'm sure it'll just be like, let
Speaker 1: us just take all that from you.
Speaker 2: Give us, don't worry.
Speaker 1: Give us your crop tops, give us your inappropriately googled
Speaker 1: blokes in the middle of the night, give us everything.
Speaker 2: Come on, that's a heavy load you're carrying me.
Speaker 1: By the way, I bet you that's why angels can flies,
Speaker 1: because they've given away all of the awful secrets to God.
Speaker 2: They took off that heavy backpack and then they unfurled
Speaker 2: their ways exactly.
Speaker 1: They didn't have to carry the browsing history. They could
Speaker 1: spread the wings.
Speaker 2: Finally, they had wings the whole time, but they were
Speaker 2: underneath your backpack.
Speaker 1: They were underneath your backpack of spiritually unanswered questions and
Speaker 1: questionable human questions.
Speaker 2: Yep, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: Can you have questionable questions? That sounds like a double negative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crap tops for women over fifty?
Speaker 1: What would be your last meal?
Speaker 2: Okay, I love to eat. My last meal would be
Speaker 2: so big, it would be immense, like it just would
Speaker 2: have so many different things in it.
Speaker 1: I hope that's it is. A buffet?
Speaker 2: Is completely feast. First of all, I have to have
Speaker 2: a topo Chico because I love drinking topochico. It's my
Speaker 2: favorite all time beverage. I always have Topochico in the house.
Speaker 1: Is it just soda water or are they different flavors?
Speaker 2: I only like the plane just without flavor, such an
Speaker 2: effervescent seltzer that it burns my throat and slakes my
Speaker 2: thirst every time, unbeatable.
Speaker 1: Great, So that's you want to begin with the burning.
Speaker 2: I want to begin with that. I'm going to have
Speaker 2: some freshly squeezed orange juice because that I also love
Speaker 2: as a beverage, and some very fine champagne. So there's
Speaker 2: my beverages. It is not going to be coherent with
Speaker 2: the meal.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter it's your last meal, because coherence is
Speaker 1: you're about to give your backpack to the angels.
Speaker 2: It's fine, I'm taking it off, so let's go out
Speaker 2: in style.
Speaker 1: Let's fill it up, take it off.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be able to fly. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be really full with liquid and solids. I need
Speaker 2: a tiny break before I take off to digest.
Speaker 1: Guys, guys, guys, hold on, hold on, I just need
Speaker 1: to digest. I'm not gonna be able to fully ascend because.
Speaker 2: I need just eaten. I need to lay down on
Speaker 2: a hot rock for eight hours. Then I'm going to
Speaker 2: a sound I'll join you all. I'd be there wait.
Speaker 1: As opposed to a food coma, you're going to be
Speaker 1: in food limbo before you die. This is special. Carry on.
Speaker 1: I'm loving that visuals.
Speaker 2: This is a little holding station the people.
Speaker 1: Who holding rock. Okay, so what are you eating?
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna need some great cheese and some fine cracker.
Speaker 2: I love cheese and crackers love. I love fine breads,
Speaker 2: cold salted butter. We're gonna have some freshly baked breads,
Speaker 2: crackers like a spread. I wouldn't mind having a shrimp cocktail,
Speaker 2: a classic one, because I love a shrimp cocktail me
Speaker 2: too delicious. I would love like a really good hummus,
Speaker 2: some chickpea like I love Thomas and chickpeas. I love that.
Speaker 2: I'd love a kale salad. I love kale. A great
Speaker 2: steak would be nice. I love a steak.
Speaker 1: You can have all of it.
Speaker 2: My husband makes the best steak rub, so it has
Speaker 2: to have that. It is so delicious that every time
Speaker 2: we eat it, we don't eat it very much. We
Speaker 2: don't eat that much meat, but when we do, it's
Speaker 2: very special. I'm going to make my own rice pee laugh,
Speaker 2: because we all love it in this family. I make
Speaker 2: great rice. I just do, and every one of my
Speaker 2: family is like, the meal is whatever, but this rice,
Speaker 2: everybody gets excited about it. Someone have that. Some veggies,
Speaker 2: you know, surprise me. I love vegetables. Surprise me with
Speaker 2: the vegetables. Let's get nuts. There's things that can't be
Speaker 2: on the table, such as eggplant, which is just not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2: If you have to jazz it too much to make
Speaker 2: it nice, it probably wasn't intended for consumption.
Speaker 1: It's a night shade. It's out. I almost feel that
Speaker 1: way about tomatoes, which are a fellow night shade. But
Speaker 1: carry on. This is your male, not mine.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have some roasted mushrooms. I love mushrooms. I
Speaker 2: love caramelized onions. We should have some of that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Probably a roast chicken too, Okay, I love a roast chicken,
Speaker 2: like a proper French style, salted, crispy skin roast chicken.
Speaker 2: It would be nice. And then we're gonna go have
Speaker 2: some dessert. I love cake. It doesn't really matter what
Speaker 2: flavor it is. I just love cake. I love cake.
Speaker 2: It's so good, it's delicious. Also, we have to have dates.
Speaker 2: I love dates dates and cake. Sticky chassy pudding would
Speaker 2: be nice, like a nice date cake with some caramel,
Speaker 2: maybe a little sour cherry pie. And I think I'm good,
Speaker 2: and then I gotta lay it down on my hot rock. Eight.
Speaker 1: You are literally you're in food limbo. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: angels will be looking at their watches and your backpack
Speaker 1: will be filled, but you'll be on your hot rock digesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I warned everyone. They were like, what's your last meal?
Speaker 2: And I was like, this is going to take some time, Like,
Speaker 2: don't pressure me. I love people who are like just
Speaker 2: a hamburger and fries like ebbs. No, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: It's quite interesting how people do censure themselves around food
Speaker 1: and go, well, it can only be one thing. Well,
Speaker 1: I better just pick one vegetable and one protein. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, is it fries or is it mash?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, is it both?
Speaker 2: Could it be both?
Speaker 1: Could it be all potatoes?
Speaker 2: Could it be?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's interesting that you leaned hard
Speaker 1: into the glufftad. I'm happy that you did. I did
Speaker 1: because for a last meal, I don't see the point
Speaker 1: of if I have the option, Can you tell me
Speaker 1: about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 2: Oh, one has grown out of a personal disaster. I
Speaker 2: think my relationship to my husband came out of a
Speaker 2: lot of like bad relationships. When we got together, I
Speaker 2: remember we went out for dinner. I liked him, but
Speaker 2: I didn't think that we were on a date. I
Speaker 2: actually really didn't because I considered myself to be never
Speaker 2: having a relationship again, like unironically and not as a joke.
Speaker 2: When I was with my boyfriend before him, I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to do this again. I think I'm
Speaker 2: done with relationships, Like it's never happening again. I was like,
Speaker 2: that part of me is just gone. I'll just have
Speaker 2: friendships in a nice life and cultivate friendships and family
Speaker 2: relationships and that'll be that. And so we went out
Speaker 2: for dinner, and he thought we were on a date,
Speaker 2: as I know now, and he told me as story
Speaker 2: about how he had this female friend who was really
Speaker 2: into him and he just thought of her as a friend,
Speaker 2: and I thought he was talking about me, and I
Speaker 2: was like, that's great, because I'm never being in a
Speaker 2: relationship again in my whole entire life. So delicious dinner,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. We'll see each other again because
Speaker 2: we're friends. And I think that out of the ashes
Speaker 2: of many bad relationships that were so out of balance,
Speaker 2: and things were done to me and I did terrible
Speaker 2: things to others, Like it wasn't like I was a
Speaker 2: pristine ingredient who was kind to people. People were awful
Speaker 2: to me, I was awful to them. And we started dating,
Speaker 2: and I was shocked to learn that you could just
Speaker 2: be happy with someone like there was no gamesmanship. It
Speaker 2: was very balanced. We each would to sometimes wind sometimes lose,
Speaker 2: like I mean the battle of like where are we
Speaker 2: going for dinner? You know, we both contributed equally to
Speaker 2: the decision making. And it was actually shocking to me.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that it didn't have to be as
Speaker 2: grindingly difficult as it had been to that point.
Speaker 1: But how amazing took a sec you were so young
Speaker 1: to figure that out.
Speaker 2: I was in my late twenties, you know, amaz.
Speaker 1: To forty eight. I mean, I literally was with just
Speaker 1: an absolute bounder as we'd say in England who did terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible things to me, to his kids and just awful. Oh,
Speaker 1: and out of that said absolutely the same thing. I
Speaker 1: am ruined and I will never love anyone ever again
Speaker 1: to the person that I am still with, who I
Speaker 1: love more than anything in the world apart from my son.
Speaker 2: Isn't that so funny?
Speaker 1: I think that maybe it is like you just did
Speaker 1: it when you were much of just a relinquishing of
Speaker 1: I am done. This is scorched earth, so you know
Speaker 1: we're good.
Speaker 2: Just a ruined person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very freeing, being completely ruined.
Speaker 2: It was freeing.
Speaker 1: Maybe the angels come and take backpacks at certain times
Speaker 1: in our life.
Speaker 2: Well, isn't that a nice way to see it? Right?
Speaker 1: Maybe we just give stuff up and go, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm ruined. It's fine. I'm just going to carry on
Speaker 1: and out of that rubble stuff can actually grow.
Speaker 2: Stuff can grow. It feels there was such a gift
Speaker 2: to just meet someone for whom it's very natural to
Speaker 2: just be steady, like just an even keeled person who
Speaker 2: just wants to be happy, just like.
Speaker 1: It's nice a and also that it is actually beautifully binary. Yes,
Speaker 1: just yeah, simple, a simple equation, not a big complicated
Speaker 1: conversation about Yeah, this is my damage, this is my trauma.
Speaker 1: You know, we've all got damage and trauma. Let's just
Speaker 1: get out and have a nice time despite it.
Speaker 2: Very simple, not a lot of conversation, and we still
Speaker 2: all these years later, like almost thirty years later, just good,
Speaker 2: continue amazing, having the same amazing conversations. We don't talk
Speaker 2: about it very much. I only talk about my relationship
Speaker 2: with him with other people.
Speaker 1: Well, that's great, we'll get him to listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2: He'll like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's gonna be like, Wow, was that crap about
Speaker 1: the backpack? That was that stupid bit?
Speaker 2: Talk that way. People are gonna thank you.
Speaker 1: People think you're crazy. Just talk about my rub.
Speaker 2: I don't want anyone to know that my steak rub
Speaker 2: is delicious.
Speaker 1: Now everyone will want it exactly what are you doing
Speaker 1: to us?
Speaker 2: He could go into business. He could, by the way,
Speaker 2: it's great.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I feel like, if you feel
Speaker 1: his rub could rub people the right way, get it
Speaker 1: out there in the world.
Speaker 2: It would be great on a mushroom. I'm just saying,
Speaker 2: if you don't like than that now.
Speaker 1: Sounds very delicious. Rubbed roasted mushrooms, also sort of filthy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough. You're the most wonderful delight
Speaker 1: to talk to and it is so nice to see you.
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad that you're so well.
Speaker 2: So nice to see you, so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 2: This was a lovely conversation. I feel very energized to
Speaker 2: go pop my crop top on and check myself out
Speaker 2: in a full length mirror.
Speaker 1: By the way, I want you to do one final recording,
Speaker 1: okay of news for coops, news for goofs in your
Speaker 1: crop top before you give the crop top to your cat.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put it on my cat and send you
Speaker 2: a piccher.
Speaker 1: Please do that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that that later.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, love me, Thank you, thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you a million times. Mini Questions is hosted and written
Speaker 1: by Me Mini Driver, Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman,
Speaker 1: with production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
Speaker 1: The theme music is also by Me and additional music
Speaker 1: by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day,
Speaker 1: Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, Anick Oppenheim, a Nick Muller and
Speaker 1: Annette Wolfe, a w kPr, Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan
Speaker 1: Levoy and mangesh Had Tiggadore