Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
Speaker 1: Death of Me, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, Brandon,
Speaker 1: welcome back, Welcome, thank you. We never get quality time
Speaker 1: together anymore. I know. It's so nice when I can
Speaker 1: just finally gaze into your eyes, isn't it. You've been
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time in Utah the summer, Brandon. Actually,
Speaker 1: and if there's something you need to tell me about
Speaker 1: coming out as a Mormon, well, most Mormons don't come out,
Speaker 1: They in as a matter of fact, So no, that
Speaker 1: would sound odo like a double whoopsie doopsie if you
Speaker 1: asked me, just might be. But you've been on the road,
Speaker 1: so I've had time to explore. And when we went
Speaker 1: to Park City, I just fell in love with Utah.
Speaker 1: So I've been I know we're going to ski again
Speaker 1: next year too. You have to get us a house
Speaker 1: in Austria from don't forget understood Airbnb. Okay, anyway back
Speaker 1: to business. We're gonna play my show from Portland, where
Speaker 1: I was interviewed by another author named Courtney Hameister, who
Speaker 1: was awesome. And this was the series of shows that
Speaker 1: made me realize, oh, I wanted to turn this into
Speaker 1: stand up, which is interesting because you never thought you'd
Speaker 1: do stand up again. Yeah, we've said that half we
Speaker 1: I think so well, it sounds like that's a double
Speaker 1: whoopsie dood. Thank you, Thank you, that you that's so nice.
Speaker 1: Thank you more then. Hi. This is called room temperature
Speaker 1: water because I fucking abhore room temperature water, and I
Speaker 1: wish people would stop handing it out on planes and
Speaker 1: do saunty to saunty. I don't want to sawny water.
Speaker 1: That's Coca cola, okay, I want ice cold water with
Speaker 1: a lemon anyway, room temperature water. There was a time
Speaker 1: in my life when astrology and psychics not to be
Speaker 1: confused with physics, fascinated me, but as a general rule,
Speaker 1: I think it's all a bunch of bullshit. Meditation seems
Speaker 1: to work for some people, while medication works for others,
Speaker 1: which explains why it's very difficult for me to sit
Speaker 1: still with my eyes closed for any length of time
Speaker 1: without row hypnol. I'm all for people being spiritual, but
Speaker 1: I'm literally of anyone who mentions it more than once
Speaker 1: in a single sitting, unless, of course, one is on
Speaker 1: a spiritual retreat, which I hope to God. I never
Speaker 1: will be if there even is a God. Jury is
Speaker 1: out on that one too, at least until the Rapture,
Speaker 1: an event I'm convinced will end up taking place at
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Bowl. I believe in spirituality as a component
Speaker 1: of your lifestyle. The problem is that spiritual people can
Speaker 1: sometimes be giant assholes. Madonna doesn't make me want to
Speaker 1: practice Kabbalah. She makes me wonder what on earth she
Speaker 1: has is on them that they are willing to let
Speaker 1: her be their most famous brand ambassador. At least, Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise is a good front man for scientology because he
Speaker 1: seems nice, but obviously he's out of his fucking tree too.
Speaker 1: I feel spiritual when I'm on mushrooms. I'm not in
Speaker 1: the rocks and crystals and chakras and healers. I just
Speaker 1: think everyone is looking for something, and it seems like
Speaker 1: some people will just settle on the first ray of
Speaker 1: sun or glimmer of hope they bump into. Los Angeles
Speaker 1: is a very tricky place for vulnerable people. Hourly you
Speaker 1: will hear words like gratitude, universe and manifest and terms
Speaker 1: like micro panic attack and artisanal deodorant. It is a
Speaker 1: place consumed with trends and fads and avocados and kale,
Speaker 1: but everything has a shelf life. There will be a
Speaker 1: point when the women in gay population of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: will turn their backs on avocados and kale, claiming they
Speaker 1: both cause cancer and a rectile dysfunction, only to turn
Speaker 1: their attention towards some new colonic hydrotherapist mystic who convinces
Speaker 1: everyone that is steady diet of fried calamari is the
Speaker 1: new anti inflammatory food for the ages. It will quickly
Speaker 1: appear on the menu of upscale restaurants, and then there
Speaker 1: will be stores selling preprackaged fresh calamari for eleven dollars
Speaker 1: of serving. It's hard to take anything or anyone seriously
Speaker 1: after a while. And I'm a cynic, but I've even
Speaker 1: gotten roped in. I've been in Los Angeles for over
Speaker 1: twenty years now, and I've you know, been taken to
Speaker 1: a retreat where I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this
Speaker 1: is a mistake, you know what I mean. You got
Speaker 1: out of treat in the woods of t Panga Canyon
Speaker 1: because some actress that you're friends with. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: do this retreat. There's gonna be a sound bath, and like,
Speaker 1: what is a sound bath? It's like a DJ in
Speaker 1: the bath? What is that? It sounds awesome. Are they
Speaker 1: gonna be drugs? Yes, they'll be drugs, all right, I'll go,
Speaker 1: I will go, and I'll take any drug. I am
Speaker 1: all for it, like I am a garbage can give
Speaker 1: me anything, and I'll tell you how it feels. I
Speaker 1: can take it. I'm strong. I feel like I'm built
Speaker 1: for the apocalypse. But there was a drug that this retreat.
Speaker 1: There are two groups of women and one of them
Speaker 1: were like becoming unclothed and is everyone's sweating? And I
Speaker 1: was like I didn't like the looks of where that
Speaker 1: was going. You know, it looked like everybody's going deep
Speaker 1: in the woods for a finger blasting ceremony. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't think so funny. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: trick me twice. No, oh, Surrey, I know what you're
Speaker 1: gonna do with those broccoli spears, you sick bitches. And
Speaker 1: I'm not into it. And I've done ayahuasca. I've documented it.
Speaker 1: I did a special about drugs for a Netflix thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, um where. I've done Aawaska in Peru with
Speaker 1: a shaman like, you know, people get diarrhea when they
Speaker 1: do ayahuasca. People vomit. I went through that two nights
Speaker 1: and was aces like I know how to take drugs. Okay.
Speaker 1: Nobody shet their pants on that night, not me. My
Speaker 1: shaman did twice and didn't even go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: just stayed in his jeans. I didn't let that affect
Speaker 1: me either. I got high that night and had a
Speaker 1: beautiful imagery visuals. Will never forget it at this to
Speaker 1: retreat sound bath whatever, you know. I once I got
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a mistake. You gotta get
Speaker 1: out of here, you know. And there was two groups.
Speaker 1: One group was going to the woods, you know with
Speaker 1: the broccoli, and the other group was doing this something
Speaker 1: from a frog five D m T or five D
Speaker 1: m O or something. So this woman lies me down
Speaker 1: and she's like, okay, you know you're gonna smoke this.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, yeah, give it to me already. Alright.
Speaker 1: This place is the worst where it's like where is
Speaker 1: the thing to smoke? Because I'm ready, I'm ready. I
Speaker 1: was like the first one there and so she says
Speaker 1: take a hit, and I took a hit and I
Speaker 1: have been under you know, I've taken mushrooms. I've taken acid.
Speaker 1: I took my s a t s on acid, which
Speaker 1: is why I never went to college. You know, I
Speaker 1: have a lot of history with this stuff. And I
Speaker 1: took it and I was like, god, I thought for sure.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god. I looked at the
Speaker 1: woman and I was just immediately sweating, ripping my clothes off,
Speaker 1: you know, I just like tearing them off. And then
Speaker 1: she's like, you can hold my hand. I'm like, bitch,
Speaker 1: make this stop. I'm in a matrix. All I could
Speaker 1: see was like geometric patterns, and I was so hot,
Speaker 1: and you know, before she asked me what my intention was,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't have one. Just I'll tell
Speaker 1: you after. Meanwhile, you need to have one. And I
Speaker 1: had taken my clothes off and I looked down and
Speaker 1: I was like just sweating, and I had my underwear left,
Speaker 1: but it was a nude underwear, so I thought I
Speaker 1: was naked and somebody had shaped my beaver. I was like,
Speaker 1: what is it going on? And then I looked at her.
Speaker 1: Could you shave my beaber? And she's like no, sweetie, no, sweetie.
Speaker 1: She's like just breathe. I'm like, this is it's a
Speaker 1: wrap on this. I don't like this at all. And
Speaker 1: I'm a tough girl, That's what I said. Though, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm a tough girl and this is too much. And
Speaker 1: then I had to get dressed in front of her,
Speaker 1: you know, like you come out of it. I can't.
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna Tieme
Speaker 1: go to time. If you're not gonna die, You're not
Speaker 1: gonna die. You have brain damage. Now, yes, you are
Speaker 1: going to have to deal with having brain damage because
Speaker 1: something just attacked you. So when you get your shipped
Speaker 1: together and you get in your car, I want you
Speaker 1: to really think about this trip. So I've done a
Speaker 1: lot of drugs, okay, and I've fallen for it too,
Speaker 1: like the bullshit. So I'm hip to all of that,
Speaker 1: and I assumed therapy and meditation were all in the
Speaker 1: same bucket as chakras and you know, broccoli stalks. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I needed to talk to someone, but I was embarrassed
Speaker 1: that I needed to talk to someone. I had spent
Speaker 1: years skirting the issue of therapy based on the fact
Speaker 1: that my life was working out pretty well minus an
Speaker 1: emotionally stable relationship with someone of the opposite sex. To
Speaker 1: anyone who would query, I would say, I'm better off single.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be tethered to anyone. I'm not
Speaker 1: a relationship girl. My most recent favorite line was I'm
Speaker 1: just more high functioning as a single person, obviously, after
Speaker 1: all of of people were in relationships and clearly I
Speaker 1: was special if I had somehow managed to avoid one.
Speaker 1: Every therapist I saw before I reached the age of
Speaker 1: forty two, it made me feel like I was running
Speaker 1: in place. I'd go for a period of time, and
Speaker 1: then I would eventually get bored. Often I knew I
Speaker 1: was running circles around them. Some therapists were just not
Speaker 1: the right fit, and some of them were good but
Speaker 1: felt more like enablers than instructors. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: be taught how to be a better at being a
Speaker 1: whole person. I wanted to break my pattern of ending
Speaker 1: friendships and relationships on a dime because someone did something
Speaker 1: that I found unforgivable. I'd go to therapist for like
Speaker 1: a few weeks, and then I'd be like, this guy
Speaker 1: seems easy to manipulate, and then one day, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're a girl, that's your currency. How to manipulate men,
Speaker 1: you know, and if you're a guy, we know what
Speaker 1: your currency is. I once had a therapist and I
Speaker 1: was like, finally one day my assistant Karen, who's now
Speaker 1: my tour manager, who's here tonight? I said, I can't
Speaker 1: go today. It's just I'm not in the mood. Would
Speaker 1: you just you go? And then like the next week
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I could go again? Please?
Speaker 1: And I'm third week. I was like, how's it going?
Speaker 1: Is helping you and she's like, no, I've been talking
Speaker 1: about your problems. I thought I was supposed to be
Speaker 1: talking about you. So I had an episode of My
Speaker 1: Last Show on Netflix where I interviewed a neuropsychiatrist named
Speaker 1: Dan Seagull. He'd written several books on developing brains, including
Speaker 1: one that focused on adolescent brains. I wanted to know
Speaker 1: when brains developed. You know what what age you learned
Speaker 1: the most, whether it's possible to increase your i Q,
Speaker 1: and at what age drugs and alcohol do the most
Speaker 1: damage in terms of slowing down your learning process. The
Speaker 1: last question I slipped in about three or four times
Speaker 1: throughout the conversation until I finally got the answer I
Speaker 1: was looking for, which was that my brain had fully
Speaker 1: developed before any brain damage had occurred. This was before
Speaker 1: that frog urine, and that any extracurricular activities I was
Speaker 1: up to. We're just fine. At least that's what my
Speaker 1: takeaway was our first few sessions consider in stead of
Speaker 1: Dan guiding me through meditation, after which I would spend
Speaker 1: the rest of the time bitching about Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: what a piece of shit he was. I was paying
Speaker 1: somebody hundreds of dollars an hour to complain about Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: which seemed like the exact right move. I would have
Speaker 1: paid him double. I definitely paid for far words in
Speaker 1: my life. I knew people were getting sick and tired
Speaker 1: of my anchor directed toward the election and the daily
Speaker 1: horrifying cabinet appointees, and Ivanka and her veneers and that
Speaker 1: schmuck Jared and that evil witch bitch they called a
Speaker 1: press secretary. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact
Speaker 1: that Sarah Suckaby Sanders and Ivanka Trump had no morality
Speaker 1: and or sense of obligation to the very sex they
Speaker 1: inhabited to stand up and say no more. I needed
Speaker 1: someone to help me harness my anger into something positive.
Speaker 1: In our third session, Dan asked me about my childhood. No,
Speaker 1: just the usual bullshit. My parents were kind of lame.
Speaker 1: I have five brothers and sisters, one of whom died
Speaker 1: when he was twenty two, and my mom died a
Speaker 1: few years ago. I don't really have any sense of time,
Speaker 1: so it could have been ten years ago or five
Speaker 1: years ago. My dad's dying. Hopefully that will happen soon.
Speaker 1: And then I looked at him and I said, I'd
Speaker 1: rather really talk about right now, like what can I
Speaker 1: do right now? We talked about my personality for a while,
Speaker 1: and he introduced me to this like personality test called
Speaker 1: an angiogram, which some of you may know about. And
Speaker 1: when we found out what my number was, I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm an eight. Tell me what the eight's weaknesses are.
Speaker 1: Because I'm trying to get better. I'm really impatient. I
Speaker 1: have problems doing things for myself. I'm like infantilized and
Speaker 1: I just have to grow up a little bit. And
Speaker 1: I said, what's an eight's weakness and he said lack
Speaker 1: of empathy and I was like, huh, okay, like a Republican.
Speaker 1: I had to think about the difference between empathy and sympathy.
Speaker 1: I can be too sympathetic to people. I'm a sucker
Speaker 1: for a sob story, and I will lavish sympathy on
Speaker 1: any stranger who needs a hand. But empathy. I had
Speaker 1: to talk that through with him. I said, empathy and sympathy,
Speaker 1: what's the distinction exactly again. Sympathy is feeling bad for
Speaker 1: someone or for their situation. Sympathy is more like pity.
Speaker 1: Empathy is imagining what it's like to be in that
Speaker 1: person's shoes, thinking about what it feels like to be
Speaker 1: another person, and the understanding of their experiences and outlooks,
Speaker 1: and know that they may be unlike your own, actually
Speaker 1: thinking about what it's like to be them. Dan asked
Speaker 1: me about those instances when I show up for people
Speaker 1: I care about, and if while I'm doing it, I
Speaker 1: think about what it feels like to be in that
Speaker 1: person's predicament. The answer was no, I had never thought
Speaker 1: about that. I went to someone's bedside or doorstep or
Speaker 1: lay in bed with any of my friends who needed
Speaker 1: a friend in order to do one thing, and that
Speaker 1: was to fix the situation, to show up repeatedly, time
Speaker 1: and time again. Whenever that happens. My sympathy was in
Speaker 1: full gear, but rarely, if ever, do I consider what
Speaker 1: it's like to be that person. In that moment, I
Speaker 1: want to wrap their injury and patch them up. I
Speaker 1: never stopped showing up, but I don't put myself in
Speaker 1: their shoes. Often we think we're showing up for someone,
Speaker 1: when really all we're doing is showing everyone how great
Speaker 1: we are at showing up. Lack of empathy. That hit
Speaker 1: me over the head. Yes, that's it. I don't have
Speaker 1: any empathy. That's how I feel about people who like
Speaker 1: room temperature water. Some people don't care about the temperature
Speaker 1: of their drink or the quality of their eyes. I
Speaker 1: don't understand those people. Like when flight attendants hand out
Speaker 1: that room temperature to sawny water, I want to throw
Speaker 1: it out the airplane window. I've always looked sideways at
Speaker 1: this community of humans who are okay with room temperature
Speaker 1: water or God forbid, prefer it. Or people who like
Speaker 1: pineapple on their pizza or for that bat or any
Speaker 1: other hot food with pineapple on it. Fuck off, Rosemary
Speaker 1: annoys the ship out of me too, but everybody else
Speaker 1: seems to fucking love it. Then again, I love Cilantro
Speaker 1: and people can have a visceral reaction to that, and
Speaker 1: I don't get that at all. How could anyone hate Cilantro?
Speaker 1: It feels like I just need to meet more people
Speaker 1: who hate Rosemary as much as I do. But mostly
Speaker 1: everything and everyone at some point ends up annoying me,
Speaker 1: And now I know why because I'm not thinking about them.
Speaker 1: I've gone through my life failing to understand why people
Speaker 1: have different reactions to things than I do. Lack of
Speaker 1: empathy made total sense. This was a door opener. It
Speaker 1: was a game changer. I was like, whoa, whoa, WHOA?
Speaker 1: All right, now, what how do I get it? Can
Speaker 1: I buy it? I spent the next few weeks We're
Speaker 1: calling one instance after another where I now recognized my
Speaker 1: lack of empathy. I had been in London with one
Speaker 1: of my best friends, who happens to be a gay man.
Speaker 1: We went to see the movie Do you Remember Call
Speaker 1: Me by Your Name? Five minutes in I leaned over,
Speaker 1: irritated and asked, is this a gay love story? Yes?
Speaker 1: He hissed, incredulously. I hadn't known what the movie was
Speaker 1: about going in, and I was taken by surprise. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, you're so selfish, I replied, while I shoveled
Speaker 1: popcorn down my throat. The ludicrousness of my comment hit
Speaker 1: us both at the same time, and we started laughing
Speaker 1: so disruptively we had to remove ourselves ten minutes into
Speaker 1: the movie. Gay people have had to sit through straight
Speaker 1: people's stories since the beginning of time. Had I ever
Speaker 1: thought about that? Nope, lack of empathy was everywhere I went.
Speaker 1: This was a next getting development. Thank you. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: M hm. I'm gonna bring out an author of a
Speaker 1: very very funny book that I read that came out
Speaker 1: last year. I called, Okay, fine, whatever. Please give a
Speaker 1: very warm welcome to Courtney Hameister. Hi. Thank you for
Speaker 1: being here with me tonight. Cheers, cheers, cheers to everybody
Speaker 1: else who's here tonight. So nice that it's Thursday. Everything's
Speaker 1: just getting started. There's vodka in this there's Do you
Speaker 1: find actually that because you're kind of doing this work
Speaker 1: and you are less annoyed by people, that you need
Speaker 1: to self medicate less. No. I think I know myself,
Speaker 1: but I never thought I would be one of those
Speaker 1: girls or one of those people that would just wake
Speaker 1: up and smoke or take a take an edible. I
Speaker 1: do do that now because I do. Yeah, I'm turning
Speaker 1: into it. Like I'm not into the alcohol right now,
Speaker 1: I'm into the weed. Um. But it's not the same thing.
Speaker 1: I can't get away with that ship anymore. I can't
Speaker 1: just drink a bottle of vodka and look okay in
Speaker 1: the morning. I don't look okay in the morning. I
Speaker 1: looked rough, and I care about the way I look.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not that cool. I wish I were. Well,
Speaker 1: nobody's that cool. That's the thing. Like you, I wish
Speaker 1: we could drink a bottle of vodka. You're still gonna
Speaker 1: feel like ass. Yeah that's right. Yeah, I was that
Speaker 1: a fifty cent joke. No, I was just I was no,
Speaker 1: I was just he was a cool person that I
Speaker 1: was referencing. But I forgot that you had sex with
Speaker 1: him at um No. No, So I'm class right over.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the sex. Let's get into it. Keep
Speaker 1: can you can? Can you talk about that? I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do that because but I don't really he was
Speaker 1: a very this isn't a porn he's a very sweet
Speaker 1: guy who doesn't smoke weed. My friends were so excited
Speaker 1: to hang out with fifty and we were like in
Speaker 1: New Orleans and I think I was doing a show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was performing, and I walking in the street with
Speaker 1: him in New Orleans was like, well, I mean it
Speaker 1: was ridiculous. And then my friends were so excited to
Speaker 1: hang out with him. And then he didn't even smoke
Speaker 1: weed and he doesn't drink. He was very childlike. He
Speaker 1: ate like kids stuff like like yeah, like cereal snacks,
Speaker 1: like I remember he ordered a Sunday somewhere. We're like,
Speaker 1: no one else was ordering a Sunday you know, wait
Speaker 1: for You're like, is there? Okay? Oh okay. Um. He
Speaker 1: was a very sweet man and I never I mean,
Speaker 1: he was the thing about him that was so surprising
Speaker 1: that how unfuglike he was. You know, yeah, yeah, if
Speaker 1: he's eating cereal and having a Sunday, that's adorable. You know,
Speaker 1: he's America's most adorable rapper. Isn't it just a cuting?
Speaker 1: So we were we were just sort of briefly talking
Speaker 1: about dating, and I wanted to, um, obviously you're dating.
Speaker 1: I think you're dating. Life is probably gonna change now, right,
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna pay people when I break up with
Speaker 1: them anymore. Now I do this thing. I went on
Speaker 1: a couple of dates with a friend set me up
Speaker 1: with this guy, and I went on a few dates
Speaker 1: with him, and I was like, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get rid of all my old bad habits, you know,
Speaker 1: because I could just be like, look at a guy
Speaker 1: and who like, you're fucking belt and that's it, It's over,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Your list of deal breakers
Speaker 1: is long, long, long. That's a protective, you know, shield
Speaker 1: that we create. But I mean, your toe goes in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction, something's weird. I don't like if you
Speaker 1: shave your chest hair and you're straight, I'm not interested.
Speaker 1: I don't like that it's for gay guys only. They
Speaker 1: only get to do that unless you're Greek or Armenian,
Speaker 1: and and if you're not, then we need to talk
Speaker 1: about where you're shaving your chest. Every little thing, every
Speaker 1: little thing. You have to just bite your tongue and go.
Speaker 1: That doesn't define a person like they're fucking toe or
Speaker 1: if you know, or they're bad genes, like that's not
Speaker 1: who do you think you are? And what I've discovered
Speaker 1: is that I want to remain single. No, the thing
Speaker 1: is I have a very happy single person, so I
Speaker 1: have to But it's okay to say that I want
Speaker 1: to be in a relationship. I'm allowed to say that.
Speaker 1: That's not needy, that's saying something that I want. I
Speaker 1: desire that. If it happens, great, If it doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: great too. But it's it's better to be honest about
Speaker 1: and not absolutely I don't have any interest in that.
Speaker 1: I love to meet a guy that can ski and
Speaker 1: that can you know, have it like travel the world
Speaker 1: with me. That's great And if I don't, I'll just
Speaker 1: have to read it, you know, more books. Um, I
Speaker 1: actually dated a guy who had this pelvic Uh, this
Speaker 1: is a little off topic. He had he was in
Speaker 1: a car accident and he had his pelvis got injured.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know this when I was dating him,
Speaker 1: but he was. I called him the kind of lingus
Speaker 1: savant because he was so good about him in your book.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that what happened was he had
Speaker 1: this pelvic injury when he was very young, like he
Speaker 1: was nineteen, so he had to learn other shit and
Speaker 1: that's why he was so good at it, Like it
Speaker 1: was you know what happened with the sex? Um, No,
Speaker 1: the and the sex was good. He just needed to
Speaker 1: take viagra. But for the actual sex part, But I don't.
Speaker 1: Penetration is not really my jam so much. No. I
Speaker 1: mean I enjoy it, like I love it in the beginning,
Speaker 1: but it's like after a while there's chaffing. I really
Speaker 1: like to be penetrate in. No. I enjoy it initially, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean I don't want I mean, I like
Speaker 1: the whole sex, like I like all the things that
Speaker 1: have to do with sex if you're really really into somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, But I don't want some guy going down
Speaker 1: on me that I don't know that well, like i'd
Speaker 1: rather have sex with them, right, That's how I feel.
Speaker 1: I think there's two schools of thought on that. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, So,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to so I wanted to talk about you.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. Um So. I love the way that
Speaker 1: you talk about children in the book, Um you are you.
Speaker 1: It's so simple a matter of fact. The sentence that
Speaker 1: I loved was I've never had the urge and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a good use of my time. And it
Speaker 1: was so perfect. And you know, Jen Kirkman. Right. She
Speaker 1: wrote that amazing book called I Can Barely take care
Speaker 1: of Myself and it was all about her not having kids,
Speaker 1: and she had this amazing response to people who talked
Speaker 1: about why they think it's selfish when people don't have kids, Like,
Speaker 1: what's your response to those people, Well, it's selfish to
Speaker 1: not have any think I'm doing the world of favor right.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's selfish. It's selfish to have children
Speaker 1: at this point. I mean, the population is out of control,
Speaker 1: we have climate change. So I'm doing everyone a favor
Speaker 1: by not having a child, by not making another loudmouth bitch. Okay,
Speaker 1: people should be grateful. You think people would be saying,
Speaker 1: thank you, Chelsea, thank you for not procreating. Um. I
Speaker 1: am able to help so many people in my life
Speaker 1: that I care about and strangers that I'll never meet
Speaker 1: that I care about. I'm able to do all of
Speaker 1: that because I am financially independent and then I don't
Speaker 1: have anybody relying on me. And if I was a mother,
Speaker 1: I think I'd probably really do it badly. And I
Speaker 1: think more people should understand that it's not necessary. It's
Speaker 1: not you know. In forty fifty sixty years from now,
Speaker 1: do you know how any women are gonna not even
Speaker 1: have a partner And I'm going to have a genetically
Speaker 1: engineered baby that they made on a computer. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's where it's going. Like the fact that we don't
Speaker 1: all need each other is bad and good. Let's just
Speaker 1: say hypothetically that you meet the perfect man and he's
Speaker 1: hilarious and he's super hot, and and he can ski.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have to be older. He could be forty
Speaker 1: to fifty and he has a kid. Oh good delivery.
Speaker 1: And I was good. I was in it. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what I wouldn't I've done that before. I'm very you know,
Speaker 1: like I like that, and but I've done that before.
Speaker 1: And I stayed in a relationship way too long because
Speaker 1: of his kids because they were like little, like little
Speaker 1: sisters to me and I and I really did care
Speaker 1: about them. They were they were like older, they weren't
Speaker 1: little kids. Uh No, I wouldn't disqualify somebody for having
Speaker 1: a kid. Obviously, people will make mistakes. I'm gonna write
Speaker 1: a book. I'm gonna write a book called Hot Parenting
Speaker 1: Tips where I tell everybody what I think they're doing wrong.
Speaker 1: Because I am very persipicacious. I can see it all.
Speaker 1: And some of these kids are such assholes iPads and assholes,
Speaker 1: and I pad equals an asshole kid. When are people
Speaker 1: going to get it is? I mean, I was at
Speaker 1: my friend's house the other day and he was like,
Speaker 1: she was like, iPad and this is like the level
Speaker 1: she's talking and I'm like, oh my god, and I think, Mommy,
Speaker 1: you're not taking it. He's seven, and I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. Just based on his reaction about it being
Speaker 1: taken away alone, Like I remember playing Super Mario Brothers
Speaker 1: to like three in the morning. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: addicted to things. And when they told me to get
Speaker 1: off of it, I knew to get off of it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't like, hey, can't get out of my room
Speaker 1: to my mom. Okay, well this sounds like a good
Speaker 1: time to take a break. Well, there's a great story.
Speaker 1: And you've probably already talked about this a million times,
Speaker 1: but there's a great story. And are you there, Vodka.
Speaker 1: I think about you babysitting at twelve for a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old and taking him down. Oh yeah, I used
Speaker 1: to babysit. I opened I started a babysitting ring in
Speaker 1: Martha's Vineyard because it once I realized my parents had
Speaker 1: no money and no bank account, I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: getting a job. And I was twelve. So I started
Speaker 1: this babysitting ring, and I called all the hotels on
Speaker 1: the island in Edgartown, which was where my parents house was,
Speaker 1: and I'd say, I'm a babysitter. I'm you know, a
Speaker 1: summer resident. Please call me if you have couples that
Speaker 1: want to go out. Blah blah blah. I said I
Speaker 1: was fourteen because at twelve my tickets had already come in,
Speaker 1: and I did look like I was fourteen. I mean
Speaker 1: I looked at like I was fourteen when I was eight. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I baby. So they were like, oh, we have
Speaker 1: a son who's thirteen, and I was like perfect. So
Speaker 1: he was older than me and I was babysitting him
Speaker 1: because it was really twelve. And then he went nuts
Speaker 1: on me. He had something whatever people have a d
Speaker 1: h D or a d D or whatever, and not
Speaker 1: to diminish it, I know it's a real thing, but
Speaker 1: he definitely had something like that. And we ended up
Speaker 1: like in a wrestling match somehow, and I put him
Speaker 1: to bed and yells at him. Well, no, you were
Speaker 1: on him and you used your knees to keep his
Speaker 1: chest down on the floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I
Speaker 1: was the worst. And then the father parents come home
Speaker 1: and I was like, he was terrible tonight. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I want to come back here, like immediately
Speaker 1: rejecting them before they could find out that I was
Speaker 1: not fit to be babysitting. But I ran it like
Speaker 1: a mafia ring. Like my sister's a Shawna wanted in
Speaker 1: on it. She's older than me. She's like, I wanted
Speaker 1: on some of that babysitting money because I'd make all
Speaker 1: this money. I had like eight different families that I
Speaker 1: was rotating. I do it every day Monday through Sunday.
Speaker 1: I'd go and people loved it, and so my I
Speaker 1: started making so much money. I would double book myself
Speaker 1: and then I let my sister in on it, but
Speaker 1: I would only give her a cut, not the full.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the summer, my dad's like,
Speaker 1: give me all that my where's that money you've been
Speaker 1: stowing away in that cigar box? And I was like,
Speaker 1: don't fucking worry about it. And he's like, Chelsea, if
Speaker 1: you made money on doing that babysitting. You need to
Speaker 1: share it with the family, you know, I just want
Speaker 1: to see, I'm what you made. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: give me some I was like, you're not getting any
Speaker 1: of my money, and don't ever ask me for money
Speaker 1: until I have a lot of it. So I you know,
Speaker 1: my dad was like that, like shy storry. So that
Speaker 1: was so disappointing because it's like, what do you mean
Speaker 1: You're gonna take a little kid's money, Like why? And
Speaker 1: you know, so that kind of stuff is a bummer.
Speaker 1: But what I learned, because my dad died this year
Speaker 1: this past year, what I learned was and I was
Speaker 1: really kind of like disappointed in my dad for a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons after my mom passed away. But what
Speaker 1: I did realize was how important it is to just
Speaker 1: remember people when they are at their best, not at
Speaker 1: their worst, you know. And for me, learning about empathy
Speaker 1: made me understand my dad and what he must have
Speaker 1: gone through losing his oldest son. Like no man does
Speaker 1: to recover from something like this. You know, they didn't
Speaker 1: have the vocabulary, they didn't have the wherewithal to understand
Speaker 1: how to weather that storm. My mom somehow was able
Speaker 1: to find joy and be in pain at the same time.
Speaker 1: My dad was one dimensional. It was like, now, my boys, Dad,
Speaker 1: there's no more fun to be had, game over, life over.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be angry for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And like he stood like that for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life, pissed at the world and the world was
Speaker 1: out to get him, and he wasted the rest of
Speaker 1: his life. He was terrible after that. But you did
Speaker 1: come to a place for him. It was after you
Speaker 1: left and went to California. There's a great story in
Speaker 1: the book about you know them picking you up I
Speaker 1: think at the airport and your father brought you at
Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the morning some vodka that he put
Speaker 1: on the table at McDonald's. We were driving up to
Speaker 1: the vineyard. And once I moved to l A, you know,
Speaker 1: you get away from your parents and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I do love them, Like he just we all needed
Speaker 1: a time out. We just needed a break from each other.
Speaker 1: We had been through too much and we didn't go
Speaker 1: through it the right way. We didn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: We just my parents tried to talk about it, but
Speaker 1: I would be like my mom would trick me into
Speaker 1: talking about chat. She'd be like, do you ever think
Speaker 1: about I'm like, don't talk about chat. He's dead. And
Speaker 1: then I'd go get on my bike and ride my bike,
Speaker 1: you know, for like, you know, three hours. And then
Speaker 1: at a certain age I started masturbating on my bike,
Speaker 1: so that took even longer. And then I was like,
Speaker 1: what can I ask? Can I do on these bike rides? Oh?
Speaker 1: And then I just realized, you know that I love
Speaker 1: my Dad's not perfect. None of us are, like I
Speaker 1: have such judgment. You throw such heavy judgment around sometimes,
Speaker 1: and usually the things that we can't stand and people
Speaker 1: are the things that we hate the most about our
Speaker 1: own thing, you know, our ourselves. And we all know
Speaker 1: that's true. It is, It's always true what I don't
Speaker 1: like about him, or the things I didn't like him
Speaker 1: by myself, and you know, and and I didn't like
Speaker 1: that he was cheaper, that he was a liar and
Speaker 1: trying probably screwed people or financially. That gave me something
Speaker 1: to work against. I will never be that way, So
Speaker 1: I'm overly generous. I always take care of everybody. I
Speaker 1: never lie cheater steel ever. I mean, I lie sometimes,
Speaker 1: but you know, just because to save a conversation from happening.
Speaker 1: It's just like now, you know, I mean, so, what
Speaker 1: was it when you sort of came back to your
Speaker 1: parents because you had had a hard time with both
Speaker 1: of them, and then you came back after you've been
Speaker 1: away for a while and you sort of actually sort
Speaker 1: of loved them and get My dad kind of had
Speaker 1: a sense of humor again, like enough time had passed
Speaker 1: and some for some reason being on Martha's vineyard for
Speaker 1: some reason, when I went away, our relationship are dynamic shifted,
Speaker 1: and I think he realized he had missed so much
Speaker 1: time with all of us because he was so angry
Speaker 1: trying to sue the people my brother was with when
Speaker 1: he went hiking his best friend from school. He drove
Speaker 1: him out of town and he had no money. My
Speaker 1: daddy emptied his bank accounts, suing, suing people for nothing,
Speaker 1: never winning a suit, and and so I think he
Speaker 1: just kind of was like, wait, where is where is?
Speaker 1: You know, we had a very close relationship and it's
Speaker 1: just fulminated. So I mean, I think that it's interesting
Speaker 1: because you're doing all this work now, this mindfulness work,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to be more positive and and what's
Speaker 1: interesting is that you Obviously there were you had a
Speaker 1: complicated relationship with your dad, but in some ways and
Speaker 1: even Dan, your therapist, said he even some as your
Speaker 1: dad was a really smart guy. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that he said to you was that you should
Speaker 1: take something away from every conversation that you have, like
Speaker 1: take one piece of good information away from every conversation
Speaker 1: that you have. UM, which I think is brilliant and
Speaker 1: it's sort of it feels to me like it's he's
Speaker 1: in cognitive behavioral therapy land with that a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: Like thinking positively, if someone were to take one message
Speaker 1: from your book, what would you want that message to be?
Speaker 1: Not to have a spoiler, but um, to know that
Speaker 1: you're not alone. Whatever you're going through, there are millions
Speaker 1: of other people that are going through something like you.
Speaker 1: We all think we're alone in our pain. We all
Speaker 1: think we can't share it. We all think we're gonna
Speaker 1: be tougher than the next person or we're not tough enough.
Speaker 1: But we're all in this together. So like, look around
Speaker 1: and reach out and help somebody, because it's helpful to
Speaker 1: know you're not alone, you know, and it's and it's
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to be dark and and crazy.
Speaker 1: You have to go through the hard stuff to know,
Speaker 1: lean into opportunities, and no that there's room for growth
Speaker 1: anytime something shitty happens. Now I sit and I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, how can I handle myself in this situation
Speaker 1: in a good way, in a positive way. Get rid
Speaker 1: of your ego, Get rid of your fucking phone all
Speaker 1: the time, Stop trolling Instagram and having mindless thoughts about
Speaker 1: other people's lives, and get involved in your own fucking life.
Speaker 1: You know. And some of these some of these things
Speaker 1: are so obvious to say or here, but to practice
Speaker 1: it is a practice. You have to get up and
Speaker 1: be like, I'm gonna be kind and good and decent today.
Speaker 1: And then after a while you don't have to try anymore.
Speaker 1: You just are to. Yeah, this is watched this evolution.
Speaker 1: I feel like and now, well you I know that
Speaker 1: you wanted to read a little bit of the book.
Speaker 1: I just want to read something to close out the
Speaker 1: show for you guys. For the first of all, this
Speaker 1: is so nice to be in a theater that's intimate
Speaker 1: where I can well, now I can see you. I
Speaker 1: couldn't see you for a while, but now I can.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's so nice to be here with you,
Speaker 1: so thank you very much. It's been such a pleasure
Speaker 1: to know that I'm going through something and not try
Speaker 1: to keep circling around it, hoping to avoid going through it,
Speaker 1: Sitting and experiencing and feeling and not running, to understand
Speaker 1: that things take time, and to be okay, sitting with
Speaker 1: my pain, to understand the only way through something is
Speaker 1: through it, not to rush through life, hop scotching over
Speaker 1: or around it. No one is fully cooked, no person
Speaker 1: is complete. I didn't know then that my brother's death
Speaker 1: was defining me. I define me. No event or person
Speaker 1: does this. I define me. I decide who I am
Speaker 1: and how I'm going to behave and I choose to
Speaker 1: be better, to look more carefully, to trudge deeper, to
Speaker 1: think about other people's past and not judge someone for
Speaker 1: doing or handling something differently than I would. To understand
Speaker 1: my limitations, my shortcomings. That is my growth edge. I
Speaker 1: decided to be better. We can all decide to be
Speaker 1: a little it better. Thank you Portland's for coming out tonight.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. I had such a great time
Speaker 1: here tonight. Thank you for having me. Thank you life
Speaker 1: will be the Death of Me as a production of
Speaker 1: i heeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.