WEBVTT - Adriana Trigiani 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.120 The Craig Ferguson's Fancy Rascal Tour continues in November twenty 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:06.920 twenty three. For the full list of dates, please go 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:11.400 to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash to her website. 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.640 My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:21.400 is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:29.360 brings them happiness. Meet Adriana Triggyani. Adriana is my friend. 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.960 She's a writer, she's a director, and she's a great cook. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:35.840 But you'll have to take my word for the last 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.040 part unless you know her, in which case, why you 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:38.600 listen to this? 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:44.479 Just call her? I have said in a little chemistry 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:46.320 between you and ject Now I like it. 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.519 Yeah, it looks like a young apputuno to mean, it's 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.479 not a bad look. That's a good look. That's a 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:55.200 look you hold on to. But I want you to 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.840 look at his recent birthday party pictures and plan ahead 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.760 of Yeah, yeah, you really have to plan ahead. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:02.320 What about getting older? 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.600 Yes, there has to be a plan. If there's no plan, 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.119 you're flailing. 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.560 What is your plan for getting older? 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:12.840 Well, I do have one, but I heard. 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.360 You say your daughter, I'll be a burden. 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.240 Okay, so every night from the time she was born 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.160 in the crib, the last thing I say to I 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.560 say I love you, Lucia, and then i'd say I 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:26.640 will be a burden. 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:27.399 Good night. 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:29.960 And I said it every night. And it's a family joke. 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:31.160 Now, will you do that? 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:32.760 While you want? 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.520 You should? You should? I mean, come on, I'm saying she. 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.039 Wants to look after me. Last night we watched a 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.240 man called Auto. Have you seen that movie? 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:40.560 No? 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:42.959 With Tom Hanks, I know, not your favorite. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:44.400 I don't say that. 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:46.240 Well I heard you say it once and I'm just 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:47.520 defending your position. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:49.240 No, that's not that's not true. 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:50.800 Okay, Well I hope he comes. 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:52.360 He's the greatest that drive ever. 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.840 No, No, let me tell you something. We're as great 0:01:56.000 --> 0:02:00.000 as the material always. So people don't even want to 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:01.840 hear that because they think it looks like it was 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:02.920 made up on the spot. 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.600 When it's good, when it's a good actor, sure, and. 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.560 When it's a good material, yeah, a great actor can 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.160 triumph over bad material, though I've seen it many times. Yeah, 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.080 but not for this sustaining whole narrative. There'll be a 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.720 scene where you go, WHOA. Okay, yeah, maybe you see that, 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.480 but over the whole narrative. To hold the logic of 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.040 it together takes the writer. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:26.120 Hold on a second though. 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:31.000 A great actor maybe, but a great movie star doesn't matter. 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.760 It doesn't matter. Like Sean Connery, even in Zone, he 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:35.480 just wanted. 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.480 To walk in the room. Yeah, I stand there with 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.799 his tips and he could destroy the world with his gaze, just. 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.880 Like sure, I'm waiting a Mangini and it doesn't matter. 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:47.920 It's just that. So listen. I want to. I want to. 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.120 We're gonna go on a journey because the name of 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:55.320 the podcast is joy. Oh you bring me joy. 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:56.639 Okay, you bring me. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:58.720 Jo, your your friendship brings me joy. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:02:59.720 That makes me. 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.359 But I want to. I want everyone here to get 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:03.320 to know you a little bit. 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.800 Okay, So we're going to start with little baby Adri 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:09.880 but it's still gonna be long. I mean, you're not 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.239 gonna be a baby for a long part of the conversation. 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.760 We're going to start with little baby Adree. Right, yeah, 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:16.000 so close your eyes. 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:17.600 You're in the creb. Now where is the crib? 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:22.200 Okay? We're in Banger, Pennsylvania, near Rosetta, Pennsylvania. 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.160 Right, which is it doesn't help anyone. 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.400 It does. It does because this is the town in 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:30.680 the United States that they sent doctors and medical whole 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.799 groups teams of people to study these Italian Americans that 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.240 didn't die heart attacks if you stepped one step outside 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.280 of Rosetta. This is where my father was born, my 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.320 grandfather was born and raised, and he was the mayor 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.320 of the town. And in the sixties they came in 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.960 and studied everybody, the babies, the old people. Because if 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.360 you stepped over the line of the town into what 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.520 was called bangor right, which is where the Welsh were 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.000 the Johnny bulls, because they came and owned the slate 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:02.680 quarries and the Italians worked for them. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:04.800 The Wells should see the welshould drink. 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:06.960 They do well. There's a lot of drinking. Yeah, But 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.680 the Italians, with all the bad health habits that they 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.960 could discern, making blood pudding, eating sugar, that the stress 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.120 of being in a quarry, all of that the dangers, 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:25.400 this little community didn't stuffer from any anxiety. There wasn't cancer, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.159 there wasn't heart attack, and they couldn't figure it out. 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.080 So this team of doctors came in. They wrote books 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.760 about it. I'll give them to you, and Dean Ornish 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:34.880 put it in his study. Malcolm Gladwell put it in 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.160 a book of his eye made a little documentary about it. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.039 What we found out when they completed the study in 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:45.120 like nineteen sixty five, the doctors concluded that the people 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.279 didn't die of heart attacks because they felt emotionally safe. 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:53.000 Really so they women worked in the blouse factories. My 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.280 grandmother owned a blouse factory with my grandfather, I mean 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.640 a bloss factory. Blas said. They were yeah, sartorial stuff, 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.600 you know, you made close. They made clothes right, and 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.200 they came up my grandparents. My grandfather was a machinist 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.960 and my grandmother was a four lady at fourteen. So 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.000 I come from real workers. 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:12.839 I know you do it, but you're a worker. 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.880 I don't rest. But on the other side of the family, 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.320 same thing. My grandfather Carlo I wrote a book about 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.479 you know, fictionalized and Shoemaker's Wife where they went to 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.880 Minnesota and he was in the iron ore mines and 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.960 he brought my grandmother there from Hoboken, New Jersey, Italian immigrants. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.280 But he got his citizenship in World War One by 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.159 fighting for American World War One and denounced a citizenship 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.599 and then they became Americans and he started the Progressive 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:39.560 Shoe Shop. He was cool. You would have loved him. 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:40.400 What's the progressive? 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:40.960 I never knew. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.440 I want to know about you, but just before. 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.080 We I know everything. 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:47.200 This is what you do. I know you though, this 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:48.120 is what this is what you do. 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.080 I can't. I'm going to get to me because when 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.279 I'm there, because because it's really fascinating what happens. I 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.320 mean my mother and father. My mother was a librarian, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:02.880 but she was also brilliant, so she started the architecture 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:04.920 library at the University of Notre Dame when she was 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.000 twenty one years old. Lord she graduated from Saint Catherines 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.880 in Minnesota. They have to understand something. My grandfather died 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.400 when he was thirty nine. Carlo boniclly wait. I thought 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.120 nobody died different times. He got gassed in World War 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.279 One and got cancer. They all did in his platoon. 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:21.400 All came home and died before. They said, you won't 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:23.760 see your fortieth birthday. And my mother told me the 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:25.320 story she remembered when he came back from the Mayo 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:26.960 clinic and he dropped his bag and he said to 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.680 his wife Lucci. I'm gonna I'm going to be dead 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:34.000 in a year. He just had a backache. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.760 So he was so cool and I found out lots 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.440 and lots about him. Anyway, So he was in the 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:41.560 iron ore mindest when he couldn't breathe because of the 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.000 guest gast. But he was also a shoemaker, but he 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.080 would have been a shoe designer. That was his goal 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.479 was to design shoes as much as make them. But 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:55.279 when you work in a mining town, you're adjusting people's 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.279 foot infirmities basically, and you're fixing their shoes and boots 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.719 and all that stuff. So that's what he did. But 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.240 he was very ambitious, My mom told me, very ambitious. 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.400 And he called his shop the Progressive Shoe Shop. 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:09.720 What does that mean? Progressive shoe shop? 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.000 You know what I meant to him. I think I'm 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.520 an American and you're getting Italian artistry. Yeah, you know, 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.320 kiss my Italian American ass. 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:18.360 That's what he was saying. 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:23.200 All right, So little baby Adria is growing up in the. 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.040 Catholic baby boom. All right, okay, yeah, my parents were 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.160 married in the late fifties. My mother had many many 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:35.640 so you have five girls, two boys. Right, Okay, I'm 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:36.240 in the middle. 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:36.960 Right. 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:41.760 And I found a letter recently that my grandmother wrote 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.920 to one of her children about my birth, my auspicious birth. 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:49.240 And this is the two words that were in the 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:55.040 letter another girl. Oh wow, I just found that. I 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:55.960 think that's a great title. 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:57.280 Yeah, this is good to do. 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.640 But anyways, so but I never felt that from the 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:07.320 time I was little, I saw the dramatic possibilities of everything. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:09.760 I thought it was a movie I was watching, having 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.840 never watched a movie. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.000 I do, because I was in it. I was in it. 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.400 There was a train moving and I jumped on it 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.320 and wow. And I was fascinated by my father and mother. 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.320 I mean every picture of me as a kid, there 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.080 was a sea of children. But looking up at my mother, 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:28.880 I would look at my mother like I was looking 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:30.760 at the blessed mother. I mean like and I was 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.040 Bernadett and lords. I just was looking at her. 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:37.400 Like I was gonna ask you abolism. Because because the imagery, 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:39.360 I was always jealous of the Catholic kids when I 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:40.920 come on over. 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:42.880 Well, no, not that jealous. 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.960 But I was jealous of the guy because we were Protestants. 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:46.240 So we just like we had like. 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:47.640 Well you do the stripped down version. 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.200 It just it's a white wall and you know they read. 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.560 From the Bible and listen. I'm a Protestant lover, but 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.040 it's like there's no hush in the Catholic church. You 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.960 go in, they put on a different robe in every season, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.400 and we decorate the statue. It's Tuesday night. My aunt 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.079 is crowning the Blessed Mother for may Queen. I mean 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:09.679 my aunt. I don't think she can get up on 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.600 the step stool. My aunt. I love her dearly, but 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.360 she's like nothing in bestive. But you know she's going 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.160 to crown her. We do these things, say the Rosary, 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.600 we do these rituals, and this is the secret, right, 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.480 don't peak under the curtain of that church. Don't peak 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.280 under the curtain of any institutions. When you do, you'll 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.559 be disappointed and you will be a part of nothing. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.320 Well, see, that's why you're at heart probably a Protestant, 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.960 because you know it's theater. That was what the whole 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:35.760 argument was. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.760 Yes, I have a problem probably with all of it 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:42.240 on some level, but. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:43.120 I have a friend. 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:44.880 Let me tell you to my friend Phil my friend 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.640 Phil from Philly is an Italian Catholic, and I said, 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.400 hey Phil, he said, because I was interested in the 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:55.800 Catholic thing, I said, hey, Phil, do you believe in transubstantiation? 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:59.160 He said, what's that? He said, it's when the biscuit 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.319 turns in to the body of Jesus during the Eucharist. 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.240 And he's like, I never heard of that. It's the 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.280 whole basis of the Catholic faith. He's like, uh no. 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.440 And there's always people don't know about that, and they 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.040 always conflate and confuse the Blessed Mother and the assumption 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:19.000 and the ascension and. 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.000 Let's you're still religious. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:27.880 Oh. I prayed like a you know, I just went 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:28.640 Sunday and got. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:30.320 A treat and all that. 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.240 Well, my guide died. The priest that you know talking about. 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.080 We were talking about Alan Alder earlier. He looked just 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.360 like Alan Alden. And in the seventies I would just 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.960 they stopped the box confession. And you have to understand, 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.559 I grew up in Appalachia, where the Catholic Church was 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.560 less than one percent of the population, so it was 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.920 like the island of misfit toys. There was the former 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.960 this and the this, and the the families were from 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.400 the coal region, so you had, you know, Czechs and 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.800 Polish people who still had their accent, and we were 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.600 the Italians. But the Italians that were in Appalachi prior 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.360 to us changed their names, so we'd have to dig 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.600 around to find them, right, But you'll find enclaves wherever 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.719 there's mining. You're going to find immigrant people here. You're 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.280 always going to find that. But yeah, So the Catholicism 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:22.960 I grew up with was very open and very welcoming, 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.480 and the priests we got and the nuns that we got. 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.520 In fact, when I was like ten years old, the 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.840 nuns quit. They just said, we're not wearing these habits anymore. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.360 We're scaring the kids. And they became their own force 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:40.000 for social order. It wasn't really in order. It had 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:41.760 nothing to do with the Catholic Church. It was just 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.600 about doing good works. And there was a woman down there. 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.720 She's still alive. I think she's in her nineties now, 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.680 a woman named Katherine Rumschlag, Sister Catherine, that was the 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.520 mother superior and that don't you know, she cut you. 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:58.000 She was all business. She now lives in community with 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.400 a group of the ex nuns and some of the families. 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.920 There was a noun, a beautiful nun who left the order. 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.120 I mean she was gorgeous, Yeah, and got married and 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:08.839 not that it has anything to do with anything but 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.520 just having to picture her, but just this beautiful woman 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.080 and she had children and now she lives in that community. 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.280 She's retired and she lives with these the ex nuns. 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:25.040 All right, So you come from a very warm, Catholic immigrant, 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:31.360 safe emotionally environment and yet you live now right now, 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.720 you're a New Yorker and you've got a long journey 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:41.040 from Appalachia to your sophisticated life that you have now. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.920 With your sophistication, Yeah, you're pretty sophisticated. 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:45.880 Like you write books and your. 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.640 Well, I write books, but to me, writing books is 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.959 what my grandmother did call peace work in a factory. 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.320 Yeah. But you didn't just start writing books, right, You 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:55.240 were a writer. 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.640 In television, that's right, comedy writer, right, So how did 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.079 you get from Appalai to write in comedy? 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.760 Okay? So you know there were key moments where I 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:09.360 made decisions, and the big one was I'll never forget this. 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:14.160 I was in the principal's office and you know, for whatever, 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.959 delivering something from my teacher, like the absentee list or whatever. 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.920 And this man comes in, Nae Mark Holyfield, and he's 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.839 talking to the school secretary who was smoking. Everybody smoked then, 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:30.160 like smoking a way Patsy Arnold, who I loved because 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.040 you could give her the dish and then you get 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.280 at something back, you know what I mean. Loved her. 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.439 Yeah, anyway, so that's why are you going so well 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:37.280 with Megan? My wife? 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.240 Oh hey, yeah, we get we get We got the 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.600 job done in five minutes and now best he's okay. 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.200 So so this man comes in and he says, look, 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.200 I'm looking for I need a reporter from my radio 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.240 show and paying her thing. And I'm listening to this 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.160 now I'm making money. I am the town babysitter. I 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.120 am the I don't like to use this sword, but 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:58.880 I would say, like it was almost like a ring 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.280 I was running because I they'd call my house and 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.560 I go, yeah, and I have four sisters and I'd 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:04.080 book them. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:04.600 Right. 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:06.560 I didn't get a kickback, but I would take the 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:07.080 best job. 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.600 Like, so you're running a babysit and syndicate. 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.280 I'm running a city. I'm very entrepreneurial. I'm sorry to 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.400 tell you so anyway, and you know, people loved when 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.240 the Italians came because we also cleaned, went to kids 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.040 to bed and we cleaned the house, and to women 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.760 like getting two for one fifty cents an hour. Okay, 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.360 So I would like to say not that any of 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.240 them needed their houses clean. You know they needed it 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:29.760 and ain't got a bunch of kids you need it. 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.240 So anyway, so I hear this guy and he says, uh, 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.720 he says, I need a report. And I'm fourteen years old. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.440 I'm thinking, here's the thing about me, and I think 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.960 you know this, I think I could do anything like 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.080 if I walked past the television said, and somebody's ice skating. 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.160 When we went to the ice show when I was 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.520 little in Knoxville, Tennessee, I wanted to be that. I 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.160 wanted to be that girl with the big head dress 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:53.920 who skated over to the side and like did this 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.560 did you ever do it? I've never had on a 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.120 pair of ice skates in my life, but my kid 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.120 has the time. No, now, I'll break my back anyway. 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:06.520 So anyway, so oh, I was in amorateur ice skating 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.080 and my mother I skated her whole life, and my 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.520 father I skated, but we didn't because there were no 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.840 ice drinks or anything like that. Right, So when I 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.120 found out that we need to qualify for the Olympics, 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:19.040 you gotta do a three minute routine for like three years, 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.440 I'm like, I got to make up funny stuff every day, 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:22.360 you see. 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.960 All Right, So the guy's looking for a report, or 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.200 you're fourteen, you think maybe ice skating is not for you. 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.680 So do you approach this guy and say I want 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.400 to be a reporter or mister Hollyfield? 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:34.840 I said, I'm a writer and I would like to 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:39.160 have that job. And he went okay. He said can 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.680 you drive? No, but I'll get somebody to drive me. Okay, 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:44.520 what kind of things do you? Right? I said, well, 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:45.480 I'm on school paper. 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:47.120 You were on the school paper. 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:48.480 Now what he didn't know is that I was in 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:50.960 trouble at the school newspaper because I would write what 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.760 they called the gossip column, blind items. Okay, and I 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.400 got called and you have done and you know I'm somebody. 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.640 You know. You know I have a good heart, Yes 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.480 you do. But I wrote a joke that's haunted me 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:04.240 to this. 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:06.240 I'm going to tell you the joke only one, because 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.520 I've got like a bucket loads of that stuff. 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.440 Well, you know, at that time, you had a homeroom teacher, 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:15.280 and then you were to make sure you were in school, 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.440 and then you were farmed out to your first period class. Sure, 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:23.040 there was a teacher named Bobby Jane Cooper and I 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.800 saw her first thing every day. And she was an 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:32.520 interesting looking woman, kind of like an animated character, sort. 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.120 Of like O lave oil Are we talking? 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:34.600 Or no? 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:35.760 The other extreme? 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:36.240 Gotcha? 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.960 Okay? Kind of like if you put the Liberty bell 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.120 in a skirt. You know what I'm talking about. Okay. So, 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:45.840 and she wore really red lipstick, which I thought was 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.800 kind of cool. Well, I started keeping track of her 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.400 outfits just for my column, you know, so that I 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:54.680 could say and so this was the joke. And I 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.040 got called in and I was so ashamed of this joke, 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:02.080 but it worked on paper. Which home room teacher with 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:07.800 the initials b j C. Has worn the same blue 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.600 wool skirt six school days in a row, which means 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.120 she went on Monday to Friday. And I think, now 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.879 I would do that, now, sure I would think nothing 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:22.920 of it. Of course I got called in. It was bad. 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.439 It's like the insensitivity of this comment. And they made 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.680 me go apologize to her, which was so humiliating. 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:31.960 You got canceled on Twitter and I. 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.359 Said, you know, I'm so sorry. I said, I just 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.920 you know, I have to come up with this material 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.760 and I thought it would work and I didn't mean to, 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.160 you know, she said you had use my initials. She said, 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.879 I hope you've learned your lesson. We don't make a 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.600 lot of money as teachers. We're here because we love 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.360 teaching before we're wearing And I was like, oh, oh 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.040 my god, that's is that the worst story I ever heard? Okay, 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:56.960 so now everyone hates me within the sound of my voice. 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.000 No, no, no, no, I just feel awful. I just feel 0:17:59.000 --> 0:17:59.960 awful for everybody. 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:02.959 Now here's the other part of this though. This was 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.720 the slow crawl to journalism wasn't for me till the 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.520 big story when I was okay, I was getting five 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.840 bucks a story and that was pretty good, right, And 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.720 they ran me at the top of every hour and. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:14.680 I it's a radio show. 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:16.720 It's a radio show. And I decided and I'd tape 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.440 them the night before. The engineer would like in a break, 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.360 would tape my stories and I went to the town meetings. 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.080 I did a really good series about a coal mining 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.679 strike that was but I went to meet with the 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.320 women and I got a real sense of that. You know, 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.320 it wasn't. Listen, the jokes I was writing wasn't because 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:36.880 I was rich and I was sitting on a throne. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.240 It was because I was trying to like be funny. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.480 Yeah, I get it. So and also, you're a kid. 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:42.640 What are you fifteen years old? 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.320 Yeah, I'm fourteen fifteen. Yeah, but that never mattered in 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:47.879 my family. You do the wrong thing, you put on 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:52.800 the rack. But anyway, so I decided doing this. They 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.760 kept calling me in. My boss kept calling me in. Mean, 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.480