Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
Speaker 1: Death of Me, a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back in Studio, Chelsea. Oh well, thank you, Brandon, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me back in studio. You're very welcome.
Speaker 1: It's just nice when I get to see you, because
Speaker 1: if you're out on tour so much. I like the
Speaker 1: story schedule. It's great. Like I did St. Louis on Friday,
Speaker 1: which was so much fun, and then Saturday was Minneapolis
Speaker 1: two nights a week. Like on the weekends, I could
Speaker 1: get down with this kind of schedule. You're really into
Speaker 1: the Midwest towns, lad I do, because they're so grateful.
Speaker 1: They keep thanking you for coming. They just say thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming that you even did, like
Speaker 1: you went through the art, you did some touristy stuff
Speaker 1: while I was humid, though I had to come back
Speaker 1: from that walk and change land wear. You can only
Speaker 1: be outside. You got thirty minutes St. Louis, and I
Speaker 1: know because that's where I'm from. It was, Oh that's right, Brandon.
Speaker 1: You know what. I never even put two and two together.
Speaker 1: That's how self absorbed I am. I forgot that you're
Speaker 1: from St. Louis. I always think of you as a
Speaker 1: North Dakodin self. Dad doesn't really matter. That's it called
Speaker 1: a double whoopsie doodle. What does matter is this episode
Speaker 1: with Natasha Leone. Yes, I was very excited, very sad
Speaker 1: that I didn't get to go, but excited to hear it. Well.
Speaker 1: Natasha and I did two shows in New York on
Speaker 1: the same night, so enjoy. We'll be back after the break.
Speaker 1: Before I get started and bring out my friend. This
Speaker 1: is um a pretty serious chapter. It's called Marijuana keeps
Speaker 1: families together. Some people are not built for drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1: I believe that I am. I believe that I am
Speaker 1: built for the apocalypse. I reconnected with marijuana in my
Speaker 1: late thirties. As I previously shared, I'm open to most
Speaker 1: drugs as long as they don't leave you with a
Speaker 1: hole in your arm or staring through a keyhole of
Speaker 1: an apartment door looking out for drunes. At this stage
Speaker 1: of my life, I find it prudent to avoid apartments altogether.
Speaker 1: I love pot. When I first discovered it in high school,
Speaker 1: or pretended I did because it made me look I
Speaker 1: thought it made me look cool. But after a few
Speaker 1: years of recreational abuse, it just ended up leaving me
Speaker 1: paranoid and self conscious, and in one instance, getting up
Speaker 1: to leave the theater when a movie ended, only to
Speaker 1: realize I was on an airplane. Then one year, my
Speaker 1: family and I were on our annual Christmas ski trip
Speaker 1: to Whistler, Canada, and our chef made and that's relatable, right,
Speaker 1: Our chef made us special adult cookies. Every night. My
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters would line up in the kitchen on
Speaker 1: our way to dinner, and I would doll out at
Speaker 1: half a cookie to each of them, And if any
Speaker 1: of my nieces and nephew stole any without me seeing,
Speaker 1: it was none of my business. Our family thrived that year.
Speaker 1: Our family doesn't really fight because we're all so exhausted
Speaker 1: from our childhoods, but it definitely marked the new beginning
Speaker 1: of a new era for the Handler family. The legalization
Speaker 1: of marijuana and caliph orna raised standards at dispensaries. The
Speaker 1: educative component that was lacking for so many years was
Speaker 1: now available on all store bought weed. The labeling of strains,
Speaker 1: along with the labying of th HC versus CBD ratios,
Speaker 1: was all right there in black and white. With the
Speaker 1: advent of a medicinal grade controlled micro dosing. There aren't
Speaker 1: a lot of people I wouldn't recommend cannabis too. I've
Speaker 1: turned straight arrow people into people I can actually spend
Speaker 1: time with. I've gotten friends who have never done any drugs,
Speaker 1: friends who have had terrible experiences with edibles, my Mormon
Speaker 1: sister who's here tonight, People's parents, people's parents, Muslims, and
Speaker 1: one nun to imbibe about the people I've introduced to
Speaker 1: marijuana are now frequent users. I take a lot of
Speaker 1: pride in that. I take a lot of pride in
Speaker 1: being an enabler or a charm. I'd like to coin
Speaker 1: a pharmacological intuitive, one who instinctually knows the exact to
Speaker 1: write dosage for each consumer. After Trump was elected, I
Speaker 1: came the closest I'd ever been too depressed. My anger
Speaker 1: rose to the surface rather than simmering just beneath it.
Speaker 1: I had something identifiable to be angry about, so instead
Speaker 1: of masking it, I treated it. That's when the news
Speaker 1: started to get fun. Kelly Anne Conway Stone is a
Speaker 1: good time. It's right up there with Eddie Murphy, raw
Speaker 1: Sam for Sarah's Suckaby Sanders. One day, Sarah Suckaby Sanders
Speaker 1: came out for her breastpriefing with emerald green eyes shadow
Speaker 1: shrouding one eye and zero eyeshadow on the other eye.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a whole new world. I'd
Speaker 1: find myself laughing when Chris Matthews would interrupt his guests
Speaker 1: while spitting all over them, and I started to see
Speaker 1: the news for what it really was, a twenty four
Speaker 1: hours spin cycle filled with conjecture and speculation about whatever
Speaker 1: idiotic or racist comment Trump had tweeted that day. I
Speaker 1: realized that I had allowed this administration to rob me
Speaker 1: of one year of my life, and I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to give them another. I needed a channel change. The
Speaker 1: thing that non cannabis users failed to recognize is the
Speaker 1: way cannabis bends your frame of mind. It allows access
Speaker 1: to a recess part of your brain that I particularly
Speaker 1: was deeply uh needing to engage. How to be less reactive,
Speaker 1: how to stand down the edges. Those were things I
Speaker 1: had been working on with my psychiatrist Dan. As a result,
Speaker 1: things became slightly more poetic less final end of an empire.
Speaker 1: My sleep got better, my moods got better, even my
Speaker 1: dreams got better. I stopped watching the news on a loop,
Speaker 1: and I even started waking up laughing some mornings pot
Speaker 1: politics and Dan summed up tooth I was in eighteen
Speaker 1: for me, the year I had to fall apart in
Speaker 1: order to come back together. I was sitting in Dan's
Speaker 1: office one Monday morning telling him how passionate I have
Speaker 1: become about this new marijuana renaissance. My opinions have always
Speaker 1: felt fully formed, I told Dan with Pott, it feels
Speaker 1: like they are finally like unfurling. Every canvas is blank.
Speaker 1: Everyone is so much less annoying, and everything is a
Speaker 1: little more tolerable when I'm a little bit stoned, and
Speaker 1: I said, I also don't feel compelled to talk as much,
Speaker 1: and with my voice. That's a fucking bonus. In what
Speaker 1: way is everyone's so annoying? It was always funny to
Speaker 1: hear Dan repeat phrases I used, or use the word
Speaker 1: annoying in a sentence. Annoying seemed like a word that
Speaker 1: expires after adolescence, like conceded. I'd like that I was
Speaker 1: finally rubbing off on Dan the thing I'm realizing Dan,
Speaker 1: I told him, leaning on one elbum but missing the
Speaker 1: arm of the chair and falling into my own lap.
Speaker 1: Is that I'm the one that's annoying. I'm just now
Speaker 1: finding out that this whole time, I've been the annoying one.
Speaker 1: Dan stared straight at me, and it was hard to
Speaker 1: discern his take on my new hobby. I went on,
Speaker 1: I used to think that something was wrong with every
Speaker 1: person in this world, and now I know I'm the
Speaker 1: one with the problem. Everyone seems so much more interesting.
Speaker 1: I explained to him. I don't think you should judge
Speaker 1: yourself so harshly, Dan said. This is a phrase Dan
Speaker 1: repeated to me frequently, and one I've never quite gotten
Speaker 1: on board with. I do, I told him, I feel
Speaker 1: like that's what's been missing this whole time, circling around
Speaker 1: other people and in order to avoid myself, I deserve
Speaker 1: to be on the receiving end of my own judgment.
Speaker 1: It's my come uppance. And it's like this little porthole
Speaker 1: into a whole new world has opened up. When I'm stoned,
Speaker 1: I can find joy and shaving my legs. This was
Speaker 1: what I realized. I was stoned. I had popped a
Speaker 1: chocolate covered Kiva blueberry on my way out the door
Speaker 1: that morning. I don't usually take them in the morning,
Speaker 1: but I had therapy and thought, fuck it. That's my
Speaker 1: favorite thing about edibles. Forgetting you've taken any and then
Speaker 1: you feel this little psychological twinkle and suddenly things get
Speaker 1: just a wee bit more dynamic. We'd lit up my
Speaker 1: curiosity and things I hadn't been interested in for years.
Speaker 1: That's what I was missing, getting lost in life a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Dan told me that if I could
Speaker 1: access that state of mind when I was high, it
Speaker 1: was already part of my psyche, which meant that I
Speaker 1: could access it without anything at all or through meditation.
Speaker 1: I'm not there yet, I told him, I'm gonna stick
Speaker 1: with the weed right now. I'd been trying to for
Speaker 1: months to meditate, and it was going nowhere fast. I
Speaker 1: could only do forced meditation when I was with Dan.
Speaker 1: He made me short recordings and meditations and long recordings
Speaker 1: and meditations, and I tried to do it for a
Speaker 1: few days at home, and then I'd forget, or I'd
Speaker 1: remember and then forget. Not only is it easier for
Speaker 1: me to be around other people, I told him, it's
Speaker 1: definitely easier for people to be around me. I'm able
Speaker 1: to have conversations with people. I never had the patience
Speaker 1: to listen to before. I'm so much less judge. Everything
Speaker 1: becomes a little bit softer, a little bit less apocalyptic.
Speaker 1: No black and white, more middle, more pleasant. Well that's great,
Speaker 1: he said, I don't have a problem with you taking edibles.
Speaker 1: And I said, the other good news is it's cutting
Speaker 1: my drinking in half. This was a sentence I thought
Speaker 1: would never come out of my mouth. So I want
Speaker 1: to be very very clear this. I have no intention
Speaker 1: now or in any future of giving up alcohol. Thank
Speaker 1: you for your support. Okay, this is not a book
Speaker 1: where I get sober at the end. However, cutting my
Speaker 1: drinking in a half was an unexpected perk, and that
Speaker 1: is when I started to get serious about cannabis. I've
Speaker 1: been approached by various weed companies to start my own
Speaker 1: line of cannabis products, but I didn't want to jump
Speaker 1: on the bandwagon until I had done due diligence and
Speaker 1: fully investigated what was available on the market. This meant
Speaker 1: that it had became my job to know everything about
Speaker 1: every available oil, weed, candy, bath, salt, herb, and food
Speaker 1: item that contained cannabis. I was sitting around my house
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles one weekend with my brother's Glen and
Speaker 1: my sister Shawna, who are in the audience tonight doling
Speaker 1: out the new edibles that I wanted them to try. Chelsea,
Speaker 1: Glenn asked me, dripping in sarcasm, would you consider yourself
Speaker 1: a medical practitioner. No, I think of myself as more
Speaker 1: of a pharmacological intuitive, I said, testing out the term
Speaker 1: in everyday usage. I have a history of helping people, Glenn,
Speaker 1: yourself included, So why don't you shut the funk up
Speaker 1: and take this edible? Glenn and I both suffer from
Speaker 1: psoriasis on our skin, but only one of us had
Speaker 1: clear skin until I shared with Glenn the prescription that
Speaker 1: had knocked it out of my system to ducksy cycling
Speaker 1: twice a day, ten days, never on an empty stomach.
Speaker 1: I gave the very same prescription to my hairstylist when
Speaker 1: she had a terrible bout of acne, twice a day,
Speaker 1: ten days, never on an empty stomach. Glenn no longer
Speaker 1: has ariasis, and my hair stylist no longer has acne.
Speaker 1: And there are several African villagers who now have the
Speaker 1: cure to malaria. My sister Simona is required to give
Speaker 1: formal presentations at work, which makes her nervous. Her anxiety
Speaker 1: causes dry mouth, so I gave her a bottle of propanalol,
Speaker 1: which is a beta blocker that cuts off the signal
Speaker 1: from your neurotransmitters that tells your brain it's anxious. Thank
Speaker 1: god we have a doctor in the family. Simone set
Speaker 1: after a second promotion. My area of expertise isn't only
Speaker 1: limited to cannabis and pharmaceuticals. I have had a hundred
Speaker 1: percent success rate helping many women friends who prior to
Speaker 1: my intervention hadn't gone number two in years become regular.
Speaker 1: Women in particular struggle with regularity, so it is important
Speaker 1: to have bowel movement advocates out there. There are over
Speaker 1: the counter calcium magnesium pills called mag O seven from
Speaker 1: Aerobic Life, and if you start with four each night,
Speaker 1: typically by day three, you will start to have regular
Speaker 1: bowel movements. They do not pay me. This is a
Speaker 1: public service announcement. At that point, once you start going regularly,
Speaker 1: I usually advise patients to reduce their intake to three
Speaker 1: pills in order to avoid morning diarrhea, breast inflammation before
Speaker 1: your period. Rose hips once a day for a month.
Speaker 1: My cousin Molly told me that one hangovers to etcetern
Speaker 1: and the headache will be gone in less than ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Caffeine is the antidote to headaches caused by alcohol, and
Speaker 1: Excedrin contains caffeine. I would like them to pay me
Speaker 1: to promote them, because that's something I would do. If
Speaker 1: you've been drinking milk thistle helps if you take it
Speaker 1: before you go to bed, but it's hard to remember
Speaker 1: to take something when your ship face. All in all,
Speaker 1: my point is I've had an incredible track record with
Speaker 1: curing people, and the only mistakes I make are usually
Speaker 1: with myself, Like the time I swallowed a yeast infection
Speaker 1: pill that was supposed to be administered vaginally after speaking
Speaker 1: with my doctor on the phone. I waited expectantly in
Speaker 1: the forty eight hours that followed for a loaf of
Speaker 1: bread to pop out of my mouth. I know if
Speaker 1: people have the personality for zan X or if they
Speaker 1: will do better on a lighter sleeping pill like Sonata
Speaker 1: generic brand is a leplan. I also know that zan
Speaker 1: X isn't a sleeping pill, but that's what I used
Speaker 1: it for. Adderall is good for some people, but too
Speaker 1: much for certain personality types. High energy people like me
Speaker 1: do not need adderall, no matter how tired you are,
Speaker 1: unless you want to wake up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night cracking your fucking goals. But if you do
Speaker 1: like adderall, what's even better is Provigil or new Vigil.
Speaker 1: That's what people in the government, in the military use
Speaker 1: when they travel through different time zones. Provigil is the
Speaker 1: best thing I've ever taken for jet lag or if
Speaker 1: I really need to focus on something. But again, if
Speaker 1: you have a knuckle cracking problem, which everyone in my
Speaker 1: family has, just start with a half. There's nothing I
Speaker 1: love more than hopping on an international flight, popping a
Speaker 1: Xanex and sleeping for twelve hours straight. But I've become
Speaker 1: so disgusted with the pharmaceutical industry in this country that
Speaker 1: I have redirected that passion and dedication into the healthier
Speaker 1: alternative cannabis. Chelsea Glenn said, putting his fork down. You
Speaker 1: should be a late stage companion. That's something you could
Speaker 1: do your fun, something activity based, so you can, you know,
Speaker 1: be moving somewhere by the mountains or a pool. Older
Speaker 1: men seem to be drawn to you. You'd get hired
Speaker 1: all the time. Who's in the late stage? I asked him,
Speaker 1: me or the companion. The companion, shann Has said, always
Speaker 1: the companion. You have a lot in common with older people.
Speaker 1: He's got a good idea. Then my brother said, this
Speaker 1: can be the perfect foil for your identity crisis, Chelsea.
Speaker 1: Since you can no longer date older guys, this is
Speaker 1: the way you can still hang out with them all
Speaker 1: the time. The reason I can't date older guys is
Speaker 1: because now they're too fucking old and forty four. So
Speaker 1: I got to lower the margin and get in my
Speaker 1: own age group, which is tough. Glenn wiped his mouth
Speaker 1: and took a sip of Mike's Hard Lemonade, which he
Speaker 1: had brought to my house. Glenn and I are a
Speaker 1: lot of like we find something we like and then
Speaker 1: we abuse it for two months, and then we're onto
Speaker 1: the next thing. Glenn was having a Mike's Hard Lemonade renaissance,
Speaker 1: and although I was repulsed, I understood it, Chelsea. Glenn said,
Speaker 1: and you're in your professional opinion. What procedure do you
Speaker 1: think Donald Trump is getting to make his face look
Speaker 1: like it does? What do you mean, I asked, I
Speaker 1: don't think he's actually getting work done to look that bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, what he should be doing is resurfacing the
Speaker 1: texture of his skin, at the very least, getting the
Speaker 1: fat sucked out from underneath his eyes, and maybe light
Speaker 1: bo But he obviously can't even see clearly. If he
Speaker 1: thinks that's what he's presenting, is even presentable. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously we're not going to get through to this guy.
Speaker 1: His asses the size of my dog Berts, So I
Speaker 1: think that should be on the first thing on his
Speaker 1: to do list. You don't think he's doing stuff to
Speaker 1: his mouth, Glenn asked, He was being serious, so I
Speaker 1: looked up. Yeah, Like, what is there some sort of
Speaker 1: surgical procedure or face treatment that makes your mouth look
Speaker 1: more like an anis? I had to think about that
Speaker 1: when my brother asked me that question. I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about a procedure to make your mouth smaller or
Speaker 1: face treatment that makes your mouth look more like an
Speaker 1: anis or anus. Like, I'm not sure what the vernacular
Speaker 1: is here. He may think it looks good, Chelsea, Glenn
Speaker 1: reminded me, it's as if his mouth keeps getting tighter
Speaker 1: and tighter and smaller and smaller. I liked the idea
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump sewing his mouth closed, one surgical procedure
Speaker 1: at a time. This country has had a rough year,
Speaker 1: Glenn's side. Men have had a rough year, Shauna said,
Speaker 1: and you fucking deserve it. It sounds like I said,
Speaker 1: you only have yourselves to blame. It's a wrap on
Speaker 1: old white men. Well, not all old white men, just
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, Yeah, Shauna said, walking back to
Speaker 1: the table with a frozen ham in her hands. She
Speaker 1: wanted to know if I was saving the ham for
Speaker 1: a special occasion. Occasion she was definitely stoned if she
Speaker 1: wanted to cook a ham. So I redirected my attention
Speaker 1: back to the only male in the room. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you a little story about men, Glenn. Okay, every
Speaker 1: week I go to the nail salon where I get
Speaker 1: a massage on my forearms after my manicure, and that
Speaker 1: is the closest I have ever in my life come
Speaker 1: to understand what it feels like to get a hand shop.
Speaker 1: I want a climax in that salon. I want to
Speaker 1: let loose and just let them rubby and just let
Speaker 1: it rip. I want that, but I don't do it
Speaker 1: because I'm not a fucking pig. That's the difference between
Speaker 1: men and women. We are more prone to controlling ourselves. Yes,
Speaker 1: Glenna Green, most women are, but I would place you
Speaker 1: in the category of people who have trouble controlling themselves.
Speaker 1: It's a very good thing you weren't born with male
Speaker 1: genitaliat I can guarantee that if I were, you would
Speaker 1: still never find me jerking off into a fucking plant.
Speaker 1: Who did that? He asked, I don't know. One of
Speaker 1: these guys, Louis c. K or Harvey Weinstein, one of
Speaker 1: them jerked off into a plant. I mean, seriously, when
Speaker 1: does it come to that. I'm stone high, drunken stone,
Speaker 1: Shanna said, with a frozen ham tucked into her armpit.
Speaker 1: You're not drunk, I reassured her, and guided her upstairs
Speaker 1: to my bathroom. I placed the frozen ham on the
Speaker 1: floor of the infrared sonora and told Sean it would
Speaker 1: be ready first thing in the morning. Is that thing
Speaker 1: even on? She asked, yes, I told her, as I
Speaker 1: guided her to my bed. How do you feel, I said,
Speaker 1: as we climbed into bed, super warm and fuzzy, she
Speaker 1: told me. I got out my medical journal journal and
Speaker 1: I made a note of her condition. Are you hungry?
Speaker 1: I asked her. I had been working tirelessly on isolating
Speaker 1: the right strain of marijuana that doesn't give you the
Speaker 1: munch sheets. I'm not hungry, she said. The ham just
Speaker 1: reminded me of something Mom would have made us a Christmas.
Speaker 1: I said, Oh, do you feel sad? I took out
Speaker 1: my medical notebook again. No, just warm and fuzzy. We
Speaker 1: lay in my bed, holding hands, looking out of the backyard,
Speaker 1: lit by the lanterns hanging into my trees. I felt
Speaker 1: grateful in that moment that I was lying next to
Speaker 1: my sister, and for all the gifts that life had
Speaker 1: given me, and for all the girls life had given me.
Speaker 1: I just want everything to go on forever, I told Shannah,
Speaker 1: and then I stuck my finger in her butt. When
Speaker 1: are we gonna be too old to act like this?
Speaker 1: She asked me, giggling. Will never be too old to
Speaker 1: act like this? I told her. Then she yawned and said,
Speaker 1: just because I get colon X doesn't mean you can
Speaker 1: treat me like ship. And then she rolled over and
Speaker 1: fell asleep. Thank you. M hm. Okay, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break and we'll be right back. MH. I'm
Speaker 1: very grateful to my friend. That's who I've known for
Speaker 1: many years, and she's always been somebody that I've watched
Speaker 1: because you could watch her for hours. And she just
Speaker 1: had a very very successful run with her new show,
Speaker 1: Russian Dal, which I know everybody knows about. So please
Speaker 1: welcome Natasha Leone. I'm in business business attire. Thank you
Speaker 1: for dressing so professionally. You know. The tables have tuned, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: and so this is gonna be my big Larry King
Speaker 1: come out party, is how I see it. And I
Speaker 1: want to watch you individually peel each one of these oranges,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna be here for seven hours. The book
Speaker 1: is great. I've read the book. Thank you for reading
Speaker 1: the book, and I've come prepared. I'm gonna put these
Speaker 1: on even though I'm actually nearsighted, but I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to becoming far sighted because then you can do this move,
Speaker 1: which I think always makes people seem smart and old,
Speaker 1: and then they can kind of do this. But I
Speaker 1: just want to remind you I can see perfectly at
Speaker 1: this distance. It's up there. I would need it for
Speaker 1: So I've prepared some flash cards and I've told you
Speaker 1: about the Rotunda, which is a game we're gonna be
Speaker 1: playing later. Okay, so Chelsea, I'm saying it right. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's Tracy. It's oh, it's what's tracy but spelled
Speaker 1: with a Yes. That's interesting. Why an apostrophe at the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised because I've heard a lot about your childhood.
Speaker 1: This is it's a it's hard having a childhood, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's hard. It's hard. It's hard at spending your adulthood
Speaker 1: getting over your childhood for sure. Now this is my
Speaker 1: sort of big beef with therapy. This is not on
Speaker 1: the flash cards. Um, but I'm like, Jesus, what do
Speaker 1: you want for me? Like my entire life is going
Speaker 1: to be unpacking this fucking yeah ten year event? What
Speaker 1: a bummer? Why is this my problem? I didn't do it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? I know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Are talking about the ten years being your childhood? Oh
Speaker 1: so well you had a short childhood. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: even easier to get over I guess. I guess like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: by eleven, you know what I mean? The workforce and
Speaker 1: Fax machines, that's where they have you know, Fax machines
Speaker 1: and up very quick where you were on TV and stuff, yes,
Speaker 1: but also running an office and office supply chain store,
Speaker 1: which I it's you know, more common. People talk about, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a child acting. Nobody talks about my time at
Speaker 1: Staples as a kid. Yeah. No, I didn't know about Staples,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's not as glamorous, but it was important
Speaker 1: to me and that's where I first fell in love
Speaker 1: with paper clips. I'm gonna remove this one in honor. Okay,
Speaker 1: let me have a separate h Now, do you really
Speaker 1: have two hundred and fifty grands set aside for a funeral?
Speaker 1: And that's big money. I set two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars aside for my funeral a long time ago,
Speaker 1: just because I wanted to have a great funeral and
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure it was done well, and
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be a celebration. And I took
Speaker 1: it seriously because so many people don't think about that,
Speaker 1: and I thought if I could, if I died tragically,
Speaker 1: which is a possibility, I want to be prepared and
Speaker 1: I don't want to stress out my family, and I want,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to invite all the people that
Speaker 1: loved me and all the people who didn't. I want
Speaker 1: everyone to go to this party. I want little people.
Speaker 1: I want mushrooms. I want little people on mushrooms. I
Speaker 1: just want a big blowout. But now that I've become
Speaker 1: a little bit more awakened or I don't know that
Speaker 1: word sounds still, I have a trouble without word a
Speaker 1: little bit. Even though that's kind of how I feel.
Speaker 1: I feel like that money should probably go to the
Speaker 1: Double A CP or something instead of having another blowout party.
Speaker 1: Just a thought or both, is that they have my
Speaker 1: party at the Double A C P tie. I'm allowing
Speaker 1: and uh, you know you opposed to dwelling some of
Speaker 1: that cash my way? Maybe a joint funeral. We could
Speaker 1: have a joint funeral. That would be fun. I mean
Speaker 1: we'd have Yeah, I don't see why that okay, now,
Speaker 1: so how does that work? We have to coordinate our deaths,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking now, or with a kind gesture
Speaker 1: therapeutically speaking, the empathetic gesture. Whoever dies first, the other
Speaker 1: person waits and holds the funeral however long. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen years or one minutes right right? That seems fair. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: ideas ideas you know who else did? If I die?
Speaker 1: First you plan my funeral? And then do you get
Speaker 1: where's the money with your money? So what's the most
Speaker 1: important here is the money? And I think we shouldn't
Speaker 1: lose sight of that. You know who else did that?
Speaker 1: The late great Nora Ephron did she Uh well, I
Speaker 1: don't know how much she spent, how much money she
Speaker 1: put aside, but she had a file going her whole
Speaker 1: life and it was like, it's got a great name.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the Final something Yeah, final movie finale.
Speaker 1: It was pretty better than that, right, the last movie,
Speaker 1: which is actually maybe a Dennis Happer sort of a
Speaker 1: terry Southern movie, but we won't get into that. Well,
Speaker 1: this we've covered. It's a series of additional funeral questions.
Speaker 1: DJ's destination funerals and so on. Do you have a
Speaker 1: DJ you'd like to use at your wedding? I mean funeral?
Speaker 1: I actually am planning a wedding funeral, so it's not
Speaker 1: even uh, you know, a Freudian slips. So that's when
Speaker 1: I'm getting married, is uh on my deathbed. It's going
Speaker 1: to be very romantic and there will be a DJ. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: it's important to know. Is there anyone you know besides
Speaker 1: Donald Trump who I don't care to insult clearly that
Speaker 1: you don't want a funeral your funeral? Yes, Like, if
Speaker 1: you would like to name names of some other people
Speaker 1: that are on your list, but you don't have to,
Speaker 1: and I won't murder them, is I would not? I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not actually like a soprano. I just talk tough,
Speaker 1: and it's an important distinction. But if there's anybody that
Speaker 1: you don't want your funeral, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You just let me know and I'll make sure then
Speaker 1: that it's your funeral. Okay, are aren't you pissed that
Speaker 1: you weren't on the Sopranos. I'm at all times pissed
Speaker 1: that I'm like, where's my mafia picture? Because I'm so
Speaker 1: so ready. I don't know. I don't hate anybody that much.
Speaker 1: I don't care about hating people as much as I
Speaker 1: used to. So it's a I'm trying out a new
Speaker 1: philosophy where even if someone doesn't like me, I like them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's a that's a fun game to play, that
Speaker 1: is truly enlightened. It's like, oh, that's truly. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm trying it out and I like it. Do you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna die young? Sort of left field? Hut,
Speaker 1: it's just slipping it in. It's just the tip. We're okay,
Speaker 1: you can't get pregnant from just the tip. We all
Speaker 1: know that. Tell your kids. That's right, Yeah, that's correct, everybody.
Speaker 1: Do you think so? No, you don't know you can
Speaker 1: get pregnant from the tip? Yeah, well you really. You
Speaker 1: were pregnant at sixteen. I was pregnant a couple of
Speaker 1: times at sixteen, Yeah, more than once, more than once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: same guy, different Yeah. I had a black boyfriend in
Speaker 1: high school. His name was ty Sewan. He's actually my
Speaker 1: new documentary that's coming out about white privilege, um my
Speaker 1: own specifically. And I always thought, like I always thought
Speaker 1: white privilege meant, you know, you were from like a family,
Speaker 1: like you had trust funds, and you were from the
Speaker 1: Rockefeller family and you went to Harvard like I identified
Speaker 1: white privilege like that. And it wasn't until after the
Speaker 1: election that I really just started to think about my
Speaker 1: own privilege in a way that I hadn't noted, like,
Speaker 1: hadn't understood before. And I was embarrassed because of all
Speaker 1: the success I've had and how easily it came to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I worked hard, and we all worked hard, but it
Speaker 1: was I got rewarded for a lot of bad behavior,
Speaker 1: and that wouldn't have happened to somebody who didn't look
Speaker 1: like me. So so I went and revisited Tayshawn for
Speaker 1: this documentary because we got arrested three or times while
Speaker 1: we were together. For what. I didn't get arrested. He
Speaker 1: got arrested for a dime bag of pot he got.
Speaker 1: Every time he got caught. I was not every time
Speaker 1: who knows how many other times, but three times I
Speaker 1: was with him. Each time the police officer said, okay,
Speaker 1: miss you get out of this neighborhood and go home,
Speaker 1: and and then he was arrested. So he had a
Speaker 1: full scholarship to u n l V University to play basketball,
Speaker 1: and he was not able to go because of those
Speaker 1: three infractions, which were stupid, but I mean, a white
Speaker 1: person gets away with that. I got away with it,
Speaker 1: and it then spent fourteen years incarcerated, and his whole
Speaker 1: life was ruined. And so I saw him in the documentary.
Speaker 1: I really like re visit his family and get his
Speaker 1: story and hear about it, because I just walked out
Speaker 1: of his world and was like, Okay, I'm done with
Speaker 1: this phase in my life. I'm done. I'm done with
Speaker 1: my black face. I'm gonna go back to my family,
Speaker 1: you know. And I just left and I could. And
Speaker 1: I never thought about that until the election. I didn't
Speaker 1: think about a lot of things until the election. You know.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, we elected Barack Obama, Great racism is over.
Speaker 1: And I thought we were gonna let Hillary Clinton. And
Speaker 1: I thought, great feminism is That's a fight we don't
Speaker 1: have to do much of anymore. So when those two
Speaker 1: things backfired, I woke up and I started to look
Speaker 1: around and all asked the questions. And it was embarrassed
Speaker 1: that it took me this long to get here. But
Speaker 1: I'm happy to be late to the party than to
Speaker 1: never show up at all. And and I think that
Speaker 1: we all have to wake up. The world's only getting
Speaker 1: browner and gayer, so you better fucking hop on board
Speaker 1: before you missed the bus. Indeed, mm hmm, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think about that. I think about a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: especially because um the prison show. I'm on. Uh, I'm
Speaker 1: not making it about me. But you know it's early
Speaker 1: on I think I would really identify. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I know how to be on this show
Speaker 1: because I've like spent time and various holding cells and
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: did you got to rest a lot in your real life?
Speaker 1: You know, more than once, less than the more times,
Speaker 1: the ten less less um? Yeah, expunged um. So uh
Speaker 1: that cut to the end of the story. Uh without details.
Speaker 1: You know, I too spend a great deal of time,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking. You know, it's it's like you know,
Speaker 1: people say, and we went on this documentary, went to
Speaker 1: the South and you know all the places where you
Speaker 1: find races and um and which are everywhere in every city,
Speaker 1: and you know, it ended up being in my own backyard.
Speaker 1: L A is the most segregated city in the world.
Speaker 1: I live in bel Air. Like, who am I? What
Speaker 1: am I thinking that I'm diverse? I live in the
Speaker 1: whitest place in the country. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a whiter place, maybe Winter parlto something very
Speaker 1: Jewish what bell Air? Oh well, I'm not hanging out
Speaker 1: with the Jews. But yeah, it's very Jewish and very white.
Speaker 1: But you know, you don't look around, you don't think
Speaker 1: about that. When I was doing this documentary and people
Speaker 1: were asking me about that, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I went to Santa Monica from New Jersey where I
Speaker 1: had one black kid in my school, and then I
Speaker 1: moved to Santa Monica and then Brentwood, and then I
Speaker 1: moved to bell Air. So you know, you think you
Speaker 1: know what privileges, or you know what you're who you're
Speaker 1: surrounding yourself with, or I'm not guilty of that. I
Speaker 1: not guilty of that. We're all a little bit guilty
Speaker 1: of not being better allies and advocates to people of color.
Speaker 1: We're all a little bit we can all do better.
Speaker 1: And so that's a big you know, that's a good
Speaker 1: thing to know when you're moving forward in something in
Speaker 1: your life and my work especially, that needs to be
Speaker 1: you know, front and center because I'm there because I've
Speaker 1: been spoiled and I realized, well, yeah, you know, uh
Speaker 1: strong a great Chelsea Strong agree, um, but but genuinely
Speaker 1: and and uh yeah, I hate it all. I hate um.
Speaker 1: I hate tokenism. I hate the more subtle forms of
Speaker 1: white supremacy that we see. I hate seeing it in
Speaker 1: movies I I fucking hated that's a well done. Okay,
Speaker 1: well this sounds like a good time to take a break.
Speaker 1: What is the most interesting place that you have traveled to? Africa?
Speaker 1: I mean, Africa really feels like you're on another planet.
Speaker 1: You get there and you're like, holy shit. Iceland too,
Speaker 1: I've been, Yeah, is what? Well? It feels very much
Speaker 1: like another planet in a very Spaceland feels more like
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones. They have shark on the menu and whale.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't think so, buddy. Yeah, yeah, food
Speaker 1: is bad in Iceland. Where in Africa? Have you been?
Speaker 1: Been on Safari? Like three times? And I've been um
Speaker 1: to Botswana, South Africa, I think both times. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: went back to South Africa and then the last time.
Speaker 1: I think that was one of those trips where you
Speaker 1: just can't you can't believe what you're looking at. You're
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, and you just go on.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could watch a lion for ten hours straight.
Speaker 1: I'm not I love my dogs, but I'm not like
Speaker 1: this animal activist, you know what I mean? Like, I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not gonna hurt an animal, but like I'm
Speaker 1: not going nuts about it. Would you define yourself as
Speaker 1: a hunter? J k um So, I just got back.
Speaker 1: I was in Nigeria, I was in Ghana. Fucking great. Really,
Speaker 1: how was Ghana? What what went down there? So it's
Speaker 1: so first of all, aesthetically speaking, Uh, the filmmaker's eye,
Speaker 1: which is what I have, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, It's
Speaker 1: is so fucking good looking because it's just like sort
Speaker 1: of it's very like sixties sort of low buildings. It
Speaker 1: almost has a kind of a Cuba vibe. It's very
Speaker 1: very gorgeous. It's like a European city. Uh. And we
Speaker 1: went to the quam A Museum, which is so good looking.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh then in across we went to the
Speaker 1: slave castles. And this is a very very heavy journey
Speaker 1: to go down. Um and I really understand in ways
Speaker 1: you're talking about, you know, the weight of the world
Speaker 1: that we're actually living in. You know, they have this
Speaker 1: museum there and you kind of see all these all
Speaker 1: the heavyweights to there. It's Marcus Garvey and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and and you see
Speaker 1: the way in which America, the world at large, time
Speaker 1: and time again just fucking shut it down and Uh,
Speaker 1: it's harrowing. And to understand that, you know, it's almost
Speaker 1: uh feels like there's the idea of the ongoing crime
Speaker 1: that is our current prison system. UM is is very
Speaker 1: tough to take. Who did you take that trip with? Um?
Speaker 1: I went with Uzoa Duba from Oranges and New Black
Speaker 1: and UM, I know you were with Laura prepon last
Speaker 1: night and then you said Taylor last week, I've been
Speaker 1: having a renaissance Oranges the New Yeah, and uh as
Speaker 1: if I constantly. But it's less of renaissance, it's more
Speaker 1: of in existence. Let's say, Uh, you're also on the
Speaker 1: show and um and so we went and you know,
Speaker 1: and Usos Nigerian, so we went a Legos. So it's great.
Speaker 1: There's so much great art happening. There's a thriving filmmaking
Speaker 1: scene out there. And we also did some Global Citizens
Speaker 1: stuff that she's involved in. And um, but yeah, like
Speaker 1: but this Ghana and the slave castles and and coming
Speaker 1: back to UH America, landing at JFK and going like,
Speaker 1: you know, getting your this sort of Hamilton's bills out
Speaker 1: of the fucking a t M machine, You're like, what
Speaker 1: is this fucking scumbag? Um it's very uh, you know,
Speaker 1: crystallizing and also just gorgeous, but then also like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's right. That's why they called it the Ivory Coast
Speaker 1: of the Gold Coast. It's it's very it's a heavy,
Speaker 1: it's an important sounds like it. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think when you are open up to all these things,
Speaker 1: you know, and part of like the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: for me, it's like once you're awake to everything that's
Speaker 1: going on around you, first of all, it's an opportunity
Speaker 1: to be more grounded and to be more still and
Speaker 1: to actually pay attention instead of filling up. For me,
Speaker 1: my issue is filling everything up with noise. You know,
Speaker 1: if anything is too serious, I'll make the joke. If
Speaker 1: somebody stops talking, I'll start, you know. And that kind
Speaker 1: of cycle, and that perpetual motion, which is kinetic motion,
Speaker 1: which really never allows you to look around. There's too many,
Speaker 1: you know, there's too many important trips and and moments
Speaker 1: like that that you have to really not only just
Speaker 1: be there for and be aware of in the moment,
Speaker 1: but after the fact to reflect upon what you've learned
Speaker 1: and to see what you can do as a human
Speaker 1: being to make a contribution that's going to be valuable.
Speaker 1: So I am all for taking those trips multiple times,
Speaker 1: you know well. And I love that early in the
Speaker 1: book you reference one of my favorite books of all time,
Speaker 1: the only book I walked into the Russian Dale Writer's
Speaker 1: Room with, which is Victor Frankel A Man's Search for Meaning. Um,
Speaker 1: but I mean, what a great what a great book,
Speaker 1: and what a great sice material for writing comedy. There
Speaker 1: was there was There was a line in the book
Speaker 1: that I referenced in my book and in Victor Frankel's
Speaker 1: book called demand Search for Meeting that when I read it,
Speaker 1: it made me like look up at the sky and think,
Speaker 1: WHOA what the funk am I doing with my life?
Speaker 1: And it was stop asking what you expect out of
Speaker 1: life and start asking what life expects out of you.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, I had to read that
Speaker 1: to think it, you know, I was like, how lost
Speaker 1: am I if I've never even thought about what anyone's
Speaker 1: expecting out of me? I was thinking about what I'm
Speaker 1: going to get, you know, like take take, which I
Speaker 1: think is fair and normal and kind of like happens
Speaker 1: for each of us in its right time, right like
Speaker 1: the truth is is you know, there's even an underlying
Speaker 1: sort of lucky stroke to having the opportunity to kind
Speaker 1: of investigate itself. You know, I think that that's privileged
Speaker 1: a psychio tes for years. But you know, when it
Speaker 1: is um a hand to mouth in mouth existence, I
Speaker 1: think it's harder to really take this time. But you know,
Speaker 1: but but if for Victor Frankelfort, for context, of course,
Speaker 1: he's a I think an Alshwitz survivor to the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: and uh, he then sort of got out of there
Speaker 1: alive and started had to rethink his life in terms
Speaker 1: of what how do I sort of string a life
Speaker 1: back together after what I just saw and want human
Speaker 1: beings are capable of? And he came up with a
Speaker 1: system called logo therapy that was this idea of trying
Speaker 1: to sort of you know, that man is doomed to
Speaker 1: a sort of existential morass of endless horror internally unless
Speaker 1: they can kind of pinpoint this thing, um, which is
Speaker 1: great and important. Now you cent your dogs, um Bert
Speaker 1: and Bernice, Um oh my two big fat fox. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a dog now that it's so fat it's
Speaker 1: like if you could turn him chewy into a dog
Speaker 1: that's what I would have turned him into. They so
Speaker 1: his body has all these different pockets of meat, Like
Speaker 1: just when you think there's no more fat left, there's
Speaker 1: something under his thigh, you know. And he's one of
Speaker 1: those dogs. I had to shave when I got him
Speaker 1: because I had to see what I was dealing with.
Speaker 1: I was like, let's get down to business with this body.
Speaker 1: And I was very excited about what I found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I felt when I met divine. Um, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I do. I don't
Speaker 1: have a child, but I imagine that if I didn't,
Speaker 1: there was a nanny. Uh, I would I would resent
Speaker 1: the nanny and I would say, I'm your mother. I
Speaker 1: I want you to because I think it's very important
Speaker 1: for women, all women. Now that women are thinking about
Speaker 1: having children instead of just having them, that's good. It's
Speaker 1: good to say to people about why you don't want
Speaker 1: to have because I'll tell you why. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a whole list. Yeah no, I me.
Speaker 1: I actually think that children should be the great anomaly.
Speaker 1: It should be this kind of like shocking round, like,
Speaker 1: holy fuck, did you hear that Ben had a kid?
Speaker 1: What the fuck this guy. Oh my god, yes, with
Speaker 1: the Ben and Tina they made up good for them.
Speaker 1: What a bunch of freaks like they, I mean, they
Speaker 1: really must want to do this thing instead. I think
Speaker 1: we have this bizarre epidemic happening where uh everybody's like
Speaker 1: hell bent on Oh congratulations, you know you're over twenty five?
Speaker 1: Where's uh so, where's this partner? Oh good, you found
Speaker 1: this partner. Now when's the marriage? Oh good? Now you
Speaker 1: got to where's the baby? It's like what when? And
Speaker 1: then you see the statistics, It's like where's the divorce?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And where's the children that
Speaker 1: are like, you know, out there being like can somebody
Speaker 1: look out for me? Because I'm a fucking person and
Speaker 1: you have all the sort of unqualified I I just
Speaker 1: think for the sake of the children, and nobody loves
Speaker 1: children more th sake of the children, don't have them,
Speaker 1: is what you're saying. I you know, I think that
Speaker 1: some people should totally Like I have some friends and
Speaker 1: I'm like, holy shit, your fucking destiny was to be
Speaker 1: a mother. You should clearly be procreating, do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like it was so much a fabric
Speaker 1: of their lifeblood, and then I see, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: other people who are just sort of like lost or
Speaker 1: more relevant to the moment that we're in, which is
Speaker 1: this nightmare of kind of uh you know, um men
Speaker 1: dictating when or when not women should be allowed to
Speaker 1: have their own sort of personal freedoms and existence in
Speaker 1: this life, so that I find wildly problematic. Of course,
Speaker 1: um you know, I think it should be a very
Speaker 1: a choice with great intent and a series of like
Speaker 1: accidents in an effort to be like maybe we should
Speaker 1: break up or have a kid. Like I think that
Speaker 1: that's fucking weird, and I think, uh, people do that
Speaker 1: all the time, or people get pregnant. Like my girlfriend
Speaker 1: was like, oh, she was forty, and she's like, I'm pregnant.
Speaker 1: I guess I have to have it now. And I'm
Speaker 1: like why and she's like, because I'm forty. How can
Speaker 1: I get an abortion at forty? I'm like, it's better
Speaker 1: than being a bad parent, So you forget one. What
Speaker 1: do you mean, like, if you don't want the baby,
Speaker 1: don't have a baby. If you don't want desperately to
Speaker 1: have a baby. I mean that's a thing. It's like
Speaker 1: I want them to have kids when they really fucking
Speaker 1: want it, but like it's a big It's not a
Speaker 1: pair of shoes, you know what I'm saying. It's not
Speaker 1: like change my mind and I can't walk in them.
Speaker 1: It's like, the funk are you doing? And Delia, I
Speaker 1: remember one centime I was like, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: got this boyfriend, I'm on the show and no no,
Speaker 1: and I think I want to start a production coming.
Speaker 1: I want to be a director. I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like write stuff and and I was like, but fuck, Delia,
Speaker 1: do you think I should like make embryos or what
Speaker 1: should I do? Because like I got to figure that out,
Speaker 1: and she was like whoa, you know, she was like,
Speaker 1: not everybody has to do everything. You know, um that
Speaker 1: there's this kind of hang up around for women that
Speaker 1: there's almost like this additional burden of okay, I've got
Speaker 1: x y Z kind of dream and also I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take on this other full time job, which is to
Speaker 1: do this thing. And just the idea of like I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe someday I will sort of decide to
Speaker 1: have a kid in some variation adoptic. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the future holds, but this idea that it was
Speaker 1: this burden on my thirties of decision that had to
Speaker 1: be made. When meantime, you know, I had a boyfriend
Speaker 1: in his forties who was not stressing about it at all.
Speaker 1: Felt like a very unfair albatross to be carrying around.
Speaker 1: So I think in general, I just sort of let
Speaker 1: go of it and sort of felt like, this is
Speaker 1: something that will sort of be a mora, will be
Speaker 1: revealed and it can kind of you know, let that
Speaker 1: child find me, good luck find me. You can adopt
Speaker 1: kids in different countries now saying there's a lot you
Speaker 1: can be involved, like I like to do that. It's
Speaker 1: better that I'm not present with the kid. It's better
Speaker 1: that I'm just paying for things. You know, I know
Speaker 1: what my strengths and weaknesses are. But you feel concretely
Speaker 1: like you like, no babies for this baby. No, No,
Speaker 1: I don't want I'm not interested in that at all.
Speaker 1: It's never been interest to me. I come from a
Speaker 1: big family, and I thought I was gonna have one kid.
Speaker 1: I'd want six, just like I grew up with. And
Speaker 1: um no, I just know it's not a good use
Speaker 1: of my time. I'm better better without that. I have
Speaker 1: come to grips with the fact that it's okay to
Speaker 1: say I want to be in a relationship like that's
Speaker 1: my mature, that's my thing. Like, oh, I worked so
Speaker 1: hard for so long trying to be so independent and
Speaker 1: so fierce and so tough. And I didn't know that
Speaker 1: that was a direct had a direct correlation to my childhood,
Speaker 1: to the fact that my brother died when I was
Speaker 1: nine years old and looked me in the eye and said,
Speaker 1: I'll be back, don't worry, I'll never leave you with
Speaker 1: these people, and and died. So my feeling about relying
Speaker 1: on another person from a very young age, I didn't
Speaker 1: give it enough credit because I was nine. I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything. It may seem obvious discussing it or looking
Speaker 1: at someone else's story and going, obviously, that's why she's
Speaker 1: pooked up, But it's when you're in it, you don't
Speaker 1: know it. And I let it rip in a way
Speaker 1: that I had never been able to do in my
Speaker 1: entire life. I was never able to tell somebody that
Speaker 1: I was in pain. I couldn't be in pain because
Speaker 1: I was too strong to be in pain. And for
Speaker 1: someone like me, you know, when you get you know,
Speaker 1: you don't think you have a right to complain. You
Speaker 1: have access to anything you need. You're successful. I have
Speaker 1: a TV show in my name, I have books in
Speaker 1: my name. I didn't think I had a right to
Speaker 1: be in pain, and I didn't think I had a
Speaker 1: right to complain. And what I learned by going and
Speaker 1: and stopping my work and doing everything I can to
Speaker 1: get myself into a healthy place that you are of
Speaker 1: no use to anyone until you're fucking healthy. And that's
Speaker 1: when you're like, oh, oh, I can be a good
Speaker 1: friend now, I can look out for empathy. Now, I
Speaker 1: can get my ship together now, and all the patterns
Speaker 1: of behavior that are from that period and time period
Speaker 1: of time in your life, you know, the scorching earth.
Speaker 1: If somebody pisces me off, I'm like, they're out, They're out.
Speaker 1: Like I had this pattern of ruining friendships or ending
Speaker 1: friendships on a dime. And when I told Dan about that,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I don't know why I do this.
Speaker 1: I can't forgive anybody. And he said, because this is
Speaker 1: your blueprint of how a relationship ends. Your brother told
Speaker 1: you he was coming back, and he left, So he
Speaker 1: was alive one day and he was gone tomorrow. That's
Speaker 1: what you think, that's how you think relationships end. And
Speaker 1: I was like, holy sh it, that is what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: That is what I'm doing. I'm just that's my blueprint.
Speaker 1: That's how I think. So Dan was able to show
Speaker 1: me a blueprint, like about patients, about going into an
Speaker 1: airport and paying for things in a normal way, not
Speaker 1: shoplifting and giving them the money under the table or whatever,
Speaker 1: about making eye contact with every stranger that talk to
Speaker 1: me or you know that I see, and not rushing
Speaker 1: through life and and not taking a shortcut through your
Speaker 1: grief because the only way through it is sucking through it,
Speaker 1: and there's no hop scotching around it and there's no
Speaker 1: way to get around it. So for me, it was
Speaker 1: so so strengthening to have a man sit across from
Speaker 1: me that I could cry in front of a and
Speaker 1: you know, and then I got really good at crying.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was just crying all the time,
Speaker 1: and I was writing this book, and I was in
Speaker 1: airports crying just in public, and people would come over
Speaker 1: and be like, are you okay. I'm like my brother
Speaker 1: and I'm writing a book. Fuck, leave me alone. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be okay. And because tharcist that came along
Speaker 1: with it was just I had to share it because
Speaker 1: I'm a different person and I feel and I was
Speaker 1: my friends like, this is like an apology tour. I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: but I feel like, you know, so vibrant in a
Speaker 1: way that I had it for so long and taking
Speaker 1: that a talk about an albatross around your neck, taking
Speaker 1: something that you've had, didn't injury for that they've had
Speaker 1: for so long, and being able to release it and
Speaker 1: not be mad at my brother for dying. He goes,
Speaker 1: You're mad. You're you were rejected because you felt rejected,
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, but he died. It wasn't an accident,
Speaker 1: he goes, But not to your nine year old brain.
Speaker 1: You're nine year old brain interprets that as somebody being
Speaker 1: bored with you, or leaving you, or choosing another family
Speaker 1: because they have a sister, a little sister that's cuter
Speaker 1: or more fun to be around. So it was a
Speaker 1: big lesson and it was a big um. You know.
Speaker 1: It was a big moment for me to write. Since
Speaker 1: I've made a career of oversharing so many things, I thought,
Speaker 1: why not over share something positive and good? So uh
Speaker 1: to circle back, so the baby component of it. At
Speaker 1: the end of it, I was like, because everything comes
Speaker 1: back to my brother Chet, you know, in therapy, whenever
Speaker 1: we talk, I'd be like, like, this guy's shoes, I
Speaker 1: can't date him the fucking shoes to And I said
Speaker 1: about the baby. I go, am, I is this all?
Speaker 1: What about the baby thing? And he's like, no, I
Speaker 1: genuinely think you don't like children. So so once I
Speaker 1: got his step of approval, I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm on my way out. That seemed like such a
Speaker 1: relief to get. Like if I have to get pregnant
Speaker 1: now too, I'm gonna be so bummed and pregnant. We
Speaker 1: have to wrap up, but I'm gonna read a little thing.
Speaker 1: These bracelets they're selling out front or I decide bracelets
Speaker 1: and they sell T shirts too, because there's something I
Speaker 1: want to read from the book, uh that this organization
Speaker 1: one of these. A guy that read this book wrote
Speaker 1: me and and said that this meant a lot to
Speaker 1: him because he had somebody in his family that died,
Speaker 1: And so we made these T shirts and his honor
Speaker 1: and and all the proceeds go to l g B
Speaker 1: t q I A and all the proceeds from the bracelets.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna get up to read this. Sorry if
Speaker 1: I have camel toe. I didn't know then that my
Speaker 1: brother's death was defining me. I didn't know that I
Speaker 1: had the ability to say no to being defined by death.
Speaker 1: Now I was with a person Dan, who could help
Speaker 1: me process what happened and turn the parts of me
Speaker 1: that acted like a nine year old into a self
Speaker 1: actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of
Speaker 1: what it means to dig deep and admit that you
Speaker 1: are in pain, thereby beginning the process of relinquishing that pain.
Speaker 1: I was in a place where my brother dying no
Speaker 1: longer had to define my existence. It is part of
Speaker 1: who I am, perhaps the biggest part, and it may
Speaker 1: have helped steer me in a certain direction, but it
Speaker 1: is not all of me. I defined me. No event
Speaker 1: or person does this. I define me. I decide who
Speaker 1: I am, and I decide how I'm going to behave,
Speaker 1: and I choose to do better, to look more carefully,
Speaker 1: to trudge deeper, to think about other people's pasts, and
Speaker 1: not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than
Speaker 1: I would. To understand my limitations and my shortcomings. That
Speaker 1: is my growth. I decide to be better. We all
Speaker 1: can be better. Thank you guys, Thank you New York
Speaker 1: City for coming out, and thank you to Natasha Leon
Speaker 1: for your very professional Did you enjoy that episode, Brandon,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna like all the complience, but I like that.
Speaker 1: The tour has been a mix of like social issues
Speaker 1: and comedy. Yeah, and while listeners are listening, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we're trying to have as little repetition as possible,
Speaker 1: which is hard because we're covering the same topics, but
Speaker 1: we're managing to do it. So thank you for bearing
Speaker 1: with us on that front. If you hear like a
Speaker 1: theme or topic more than once, you know, stuck on it.
Speaker 1: Speaking of social issues, there are a couple of things
Speaker 1: that you might want people to check in on, like
Speaker 1: you're countable. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I have Accountable page,
Speaker 1: which kind of puts up articles of things that are
Speaker 1: happening and ways to kind of help or get involved
Speaker 1: with causes that you care about. Um, and I've joined
Speaker 1: I'm still partners with Emily's List, so I if you
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter, if you're looking for candid, it's
Speaker 1: always promoting Emily's list. You should follow Emily's list too,
Speaker 1: because they always are looking for progressive women to run
Speaker 1: all across the country and they keep you a prize
Speaker 1: of all the exciting women that come into the field
Speaker 1: and people who run for the very first time. You
Speaker 1: know to two people have rand before anyway, So Emily's
Speaker 1: list is good. I have accountable page and and I'm
Speaker 1: coming to Nashville, New Orleans, New Nashville Friday night and
Speaker 1: New Orleans Saturday night and you can get your tickets
Speaker 1: at live nation dot com. And then I'm coming to
Speaker 1: Australian in October and New Zealand. I'm coming to Auckland,
Speaker 1: New Zealand October nine, and I will be adding more dates.
Speaker 1: Canadian dates are coming. I just I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: my schedule. And uh yeah, thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1: And Brandon, thank you for being so um o god.
Speaker 1: What is the word? Okay? Thank you. Tune in next
Speaker 1: week when we find out the word to describe Brandon
Speaker 1: life will be the Death of Me. As a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.