Speaker 1: Well, hello everybody, and welcome to the Mini Driver Bonanza
Speaker 1: and wild West Review podcast.
Speaker 2: I can't believe we're going to be talking about Bonanza TV.
Speaker 1: It's an important show, very important.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Mini Driver. I've always loved Preust's questionnaire. It
Speaker 2: was originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would
Speaker 2: ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the
Speaker 2: other player's true nature. In asking different people the same
Speaker 2: set of questions, you can make observations about which truths
Speaker 2: appear to be universal. And it made me wonder, what
Speaker 2: if these questions were just the jumping off point, what
Speaker 2: greater depths would be revealed if I asked these questions
Speaker 2: as conversation starters. So I adapted Prus's questionnaire and I
Speaker 2: wrote my own seven questions that I personally think are
Speaker 2: pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where
Speaker 2: were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
Speaker 2: about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 2: What question would you most like answered, What person, place,
Speaker 2: or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
Speaker 2: your last meal? And can you tell me something in
Speaker 2: your life that's grown out of a personal disaster, and
Speaker 2: I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that
Speaker 2: I am honored and humbled to have had the chance
Speaker 2: to engage with. You may not hear their answers to
Speaker 2: all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to
Speaker 2: which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
Speaker 2: or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
Speaker 2: today on many questions is Rob Delaney. I think people
Speaker 2: think of Rob as a brilliant comedian and actor, and
Speaker 2: I mean I do too, But the thing that has
Speaker 2: always stayed with me about him is his writing. I
Speaker 2: loved the finely crafted, hilarious darkness and truth of his
Speaker 2: and the wonderful Sharon Horgan's show Catastrophe, but it is
Speaker 2: his book A Heart that Works, that I returned to
Speaker 2: again and again. We first met over social media when
Speaker 2: I was on a TV show called Speechless, where I
Speaker 2: played a mum with a nonverbal kid, and we'd had
Speaker 2: this conversation about signing because his son, Henry, had a
Speaker 2: tracheotomy and couldn't speak. His frankness and generosity in sharing
Speaker 2: Henry's condition and looking for solutions for him were so
Speaker 2: diligent and thorough. He was clearly a devoted father who
Speaker 2: happened to be extremely funny. Henry died in twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: from an ependymoma, which is an aggressive form of cancer
Speaker 2: in the shape of a brain tumor. Somehow Rob and
Speaker 2: his family survived Henry's death, and Rob went on to
Speaker 2: write A Heart That Works, which to me really is
Speaker 2: one of the clearest, most keenly observed meditations on life,
Speaker 2: love and grief that I've ever read. It is a
Speaker 2: great privilege to get to talk to Rob today. Now,
Speaker 2: what do you want to ask me? Rob?
Speaker 1: Okay the pod? So, I know this is your podcast,
Speaker 1: but I first wanted to say not too long ago.
Speaker 1: You know, I have kids, and sometimes after you've watched
Speaker 1: you know, Goonies and Gremlins and all the ones that
Speaker 1: you can watch with their kids, there you realize there's
Speaker 1: like a finite amount, right, So I was like, for god,
Speaker 1: what next Phantom of the Opera? And so this is
Speaker 1: what I thought putting it in. I was I was like,
Speaker 1: this is just to kill some time with my kids,
Speaker 1: and I put it in. And it turns out Joel
Speaker 1: Schumacher is the best possible person to direct that insane story,
Speaker 1: and the movie was superb and I was weeping at
Speaker 1: the end. So this is a full throated endorsement of
Speaker 1: The Phantom of the Opera, in which you played Carlotta.
Speaker 1: Am I right about that? Yes, yes, just I'll watch
Speaker 1: it again.
Speaker 2: I am so glad that your transition from the movies
Speaker 2: of childhood into more adult Fair was fans of the Opera.
Speaker 2: I think I was in a different film to everybody
Speaker 2: else in that film, and I rather like the film.
Speaker 1: That I was in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I like fanso of the Opera, but
Speaker 2: I also like this weird confection.
Speaker 1: You know, you realize he's sort of one of those
Speaker 1: guys who're like, what is he up to? And then
Speaker 1: he really his work ripens and retrospect and you look
Speaker 1: at it and you're like, god, damn it, you know,
Speaker 1: because there's the ones you love out of the gate,
Speaker 1: and then there's ones where you're like really, and then
Speaker 1: you look back and you're like, no, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: He's amazing. He's amazing, And I'm telling you go watch
Speaker 2: his Batman.
Speaker 1: I will.
Speaker 2: His Batman. He's a genius and the funniest, the funniest
Speaker 2: man to hang out with the wiest set. I don't
Speaker 2: know if I've said it on this podcast. When we
Speaker 2: were filming our set was the happiest set on the lot.
Speaker 2: And they were filming Eyes wide Shirts at the same time,
Speaker 2: and they were also filming Alexander, two sets that were
Speaker 2: I would say, dark, less happy. We got some notes
Speaker 2: slipped under our studio door, which was hilarious from the
Speaker 2: eyesword shut studios, saying don't look at any of us
Speaker 2: when we are going in and out of the studio.
Speaker 2: Obviously we sent them notes back saying we love you
Speaker 2: and we see you. But the other thing was Colin Farrell,
Speaker 2: he'd made phone booth with Joel, was I think often
Speaker 2: trying to escape his set. And he would come and
Speaker 2: he had that very blonde hair and you'd see him
Speaker 2: sitting in his funny outfit with his very bright platinum hair,
Speaker 2: watching us either light a huge dance number or rehearse
Speaker 2: it and practice it. And he was so happy there
Speaker 2: and it was the happiest set. It was proper song
Speaker 2: and dance and amazing and Joel wouldn't have it any
Speaker 2: other way. And if there was any bad behavior, obviously
Speaker 2: not from me, because I was happy in my wig
Speaker 2: with my small dog. But there was some bad behavior
Speaker 2: and he was so hysterically funny about it because what
Speaker 2: he'd do is he'd gather everyone together, not single out
Speaker 2: the person who was being a total ass, and he
Speaker 2: would say, he'd be like, I just want you in now.
Speaker 3: There's nothing I like more in the whole world than
Speaker 3: a funeral scene. And if you want to make me
Speaker 3: give you a huge fucking funeral, I will do it. Wow,
Speaker 3: And I'll get Andrew to write a funereal song.
Speaker 2: That was its quality. He was amazing. I love love him,
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm so glad that your children loved it.
Speaker 4: They like it.
Speaker 2: Where they frightened?
Speaker 1: Yeah, at times they were are you okay? When I'm
Speaker 1: weeping at the end, I'm being like, that's what That's
Speaker 1: what it looks like. Strongly pro phantom style relationship, underground cavern,
Speaker 1: you know, imprisonment, tutelage, all that stuff is what makes
Speaker 1: a relationship sing powodynamics trauma.
Speaker 2: I'm very glad that we've got into Rob's idea of
Speaker 2: love so early on. Where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, well it's funny now, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: to hit the ground running hard when I hear happiness. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, Minnie, that I have a son
Speaker 1: named Henry who died five years ago, And so when
Speaker 1: I dare to feel happy now, which I do, there
Speaker 1: is it's almost like if you look like a marble
Speaker 1: tabletop that was white, but it had all these gray
Speaker 1: marble marblings, I guess you would call it in them.
Speaker 1: That's what my happiness looks like now. My happiness is
Speaker 1: not like monochromatic. It's shot through with sadness. You know.
Speaker 1: I rode my bicycle here today and I passed the
Speaker 1: house that Henry died in, and I looked in the window.
Speaker 1: Other people live there now, but I looked by as
Speaker 1: I rode by my bike and thought of Henry in
Speaker 1: his final weeks and days. So I guess anytime now
Speaker 1: that I'm holding ideally more than one family member, I
Speaker 1: do kind of like to be smushed by them. But
Speaker 1: if I can have, say, at least two boys, and
Speaker 1: I have three boys who are alive. Now, if I'm
Speaker 1: holding two or more family members and just sort of
Speaker 1: tousling their hair, that's the most happy I can be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. And happiness for me now was different
Speaker 1: because I now know what the things that we love
Speaker 1: most in treasure the most and believe are going to
Speaker 1: like outlast us might not. So I know how fleeting
Speaker 1: it all is. So I could be wrong, but I
Speaker 1: do feel like my perception of time and the sort
Speaker 1: of impermanence of life is different from most people, not everybody,
Speaker 1: because the people who've been through the same as me
Speaker 1: and worse. But I would say more than your average civilian.
Speaker 1: I know how it can all just go away, And
Speaker 1: so yeah, holding, smelling, squeezing more than one family member,
Speaker 1: That's what I like to be. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: like to lie down on a couch and just have
Speaker 1: them all sit on top of me, and then I
Speaker 1: would be like, this is it.
Speaker 2: I love the smush version of happiness, and I fully
Speaker 2: endorse and agree with that. I think it's really interesting
Speaker 2: the idea that is super binary about things like happiness
Speaker 2: and sadness and right and wrong, given that most of
Speaker 2: our world takes place in the gray. I love that
Speaker 2: idea that happiness contains sadness and sadness contains happiness, and
Speaker 2: that it's not this idea of it being pure unadulterated joy,
Speaker 2: but happiness is being able to ride your bike by
Speaker 2: the house where Henry died. And it's sad, but I
Speaker 2: was thinking that the other day Rob and I did
Speaker 2: this amazing event called Letters Live at the Albert Hall together.
Speaker 2: And whenever I see Rob, because I have a son
Speaker 2: called Henry and Rob has a son called Henry, I
Speaker 2: feel connected because of our Henry's and I think about
Speaker 2: your Henry. And Rob just became a citizen of the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Sure did, which welcome.
Speaker 2: I can see you're drinking tea. Well done. Part of
Speaker 2: that is Henry lived here, Henry died here in England,
Speaker 2: and there is a connection to that which is wrapped
Speaker 2: up in the moving forward of your own lives, of
Speaker 2: yours and your wife and your children. He is part
Speaker 2: of the roots of that. And that's to me incredibly
Speaker 2: beautiful and happy, notwithstanding the profound, unimaginable for most of
Speaker 2: us sadness of losing a child. So I think we
Speaker 2: could all stand to have it all intertwine a bit
Speaker 2: more and not be so frightened of things holding more
Speaker 2: than one truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've got to let it all move through you.
Speaker 1: There's this quote, I'm not like a practicing Christian. I
Speaker 1: did grow up going to Catholic church and stuff. But
Speaker 1: when I got sober twenty years ago, I got this
Speaker 1: recovery book and I had a quote in the beginning
Speaker 1: from a guy named Jesus Christ, and the quote said,
Speaker 1: if you bring forth what is within you, what is
Speaker 1: within you will save you. If you do not bring
Speaker 1: forth what is within you, what is within you will
Speaker 1: destroy you. And no, I don't know if he said that,
Speaker 1: but it made it past random house copy editors and
Speaker 1: all that, and that really struck me because, like, if
Speaker 1: you let stuff move through you and don't deny it.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying if you're like I should go slap
Speaker 1: that guy in the road, that you should do that.
Speaker 1: But if you haven't urge to write a song or
Speaker 1: roll down hill even though you're forty, then do it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because if you don't, that
Speaker 1: stuff's gonna build up and you're gonna have a heart
Speaker 1: attack three weeks earlier than you would have otherwise. You know,
Speaker 1: get a pull up up your ass because you're just
Speaker 1: so wound up tight and you yeah, you don't put
Speaker 1: a pup grows in case there are doctors listening. Carry
Speaker 1: carry on, carry on, But you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You've got to let it flow through you. And so
Speaker 1: if you're feeling sad, feel sad. It's not bad to
Speaker 1: be sad, It's normal. And if you let it happen,
Speaker 1: then it'll dissipate, you'll kind of tabolize it. But if
Speaker 1: you're like, don't you feel sad, then you're in real trouble.
Speaker 1: And it has only taken me almost fifty years to
Speaker 1: learn that on paper, and now I'm trying to really
Speaker 1: absorb it and work with it.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you, because I'm fascinated about this idea
Speaker 2: of happiness, were you aware of a period where you
Speaker 2: felt guilty for feeling happiness in the first times that
Speaker 2: you felt it after Henry died?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: And were you very clear about that? And did you
Speaker 2: either have help or did you help yourself by going,
Speaker 2: this is on its way to somewhere else, and this
Speaker 2: is just what is and I'm going to be in
Speaker 2: the isness of this.
Speaker 1: So I was really really lucky that i had years
Speaker 1: of twelve step recovery under my belt because I'm as
Speaker 1: messy and as selfish and as kinked and calcified does anybody,
Speaker 1: but due to recovery I've been able to sort of
Speaker 1: not like hate those facts, and I can sort of
Speaker 1: turn on a light switch and look at them and
Speaker 1: be like honest about them and then gradually start to
Speaker 1: work through them. So when Henry died and I heard
Speaker 1: that there were bereaved parent groups that you could go
Speaker 1: to and be around other bereaved parents, I didn't do
Speaker 1: what some people would do. And I would say more
Speaker 1: of these people would be men than women, because this
Speaker 1: is a more sort of classically negative masculine trade. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you can't. You many can't have classically negative,
Speaker 1: what are considered masculine trades, but a lot of men
Speaker 1: would be like, yeah, I'm just gonna just watch the
Speaker 1: football and maybe drink a little bourbon and stuff it down,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna go talk to somebody about my field.
Speaker 1: You know, my son's dead. I'll just be said forever,
Speaker 1: things will be terrible, forever. That's fine. But I was like, Nope,
Speaker 1: I'm going directly to the bereathed parents group. And that
Speaker 1: was super helpful because I remember the first time I
Speaker 1: saw a film after Henry died, and this would be
Speaker 1: months after he died. I'm like going to a movie
Speaker 1: in the daytime alone, and I'm thinking to myself, how
Speaker 1: dare I go to a movie? What kind of monster
Speaker 1: goes to a movie when their son's ashes are sitting
Speaker 1: on a shelf at home, you know, and some are
Speaker 1: scattered in places that he loved. You're gonna go to
Speaker 1: a movie. But like I would tell a different breathed parent, like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you know what, go to a movie, or like have
Speaker 1: bacon on the cheeseburg, Get the bacon, you know, like
Speaker 1: you have an hour between meetings and you just happened
Speaker 1: to walk by a place that does half hour foot
Speaker 1: massages in a little chair. Get this studid thing. Your
Speaker 1: kid died, you know. But to me, it was like,
Speaker 1: you can't go to a movie. And so luckily talking
Speaker 1: to other berieved parents that were like, mate, you can
Speaker 1: go to a movie, and in fact, you should go
Speaker 1: to a movie. And as a bereaved dad or mom
Speaker 1: who's years ahead of you in this journey, I'm actually
Speaker 1: gonna prescribe that you go to a movie. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely felt guilt. I get it because our big
Speaker 1: frontal lobes like look at you and me, we write
Speaker 1: books and like are like, you know, like look at
Speaker 1: her to thinking and I are talking and uh like
Speaker 1: were These frontal lobes are not the most helpful things
Speaker 1: that we have, or rather, at the very least, they're
Speaker 1: not the oldest parts of us. The oldest parts of
Speaker 1: us are like smell and like fight or flight. Right,
Speaker 1: So my frontal lobe can get it that I shouldn't
Speaker 1: feel guilty about my son's death. He died of a
Speaker 1: brain to with all they know about brain tumors now,
Speaker 1: they don't know why they happen, and this is one
Speaker 1: they don't know how to fix. So I didn't put
Speaker 1: it in there. So it's not my fault that he died.
Speaker 1: I can say that, right, But the sense of smell
Speaker 1: part of my brain, the fight or flight part, is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he died before you. You know, it's your fault.
Speaker 1: You did something wrong. You know, you didn't dig a
Speaker 1: whole miles under the earth in Sweden to try to
Speaker 1: find a friggin root that you could get the essence
Speaker 1: of to cure his cancer.
Speaker 2: You didn't.
Speaker 1: It's your fault, you know, And so you need to
Speaker 1: know that you're going to feel the guilt if your
Speaker 1: kid dies before you. It's part of what happens when
Speaker 1: your kid dies, And intellectually you'll understand that it's not
Speaker 1: your fault, but you'll still feel guilty. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: guess the next thing I'll say is, oh, well, exactly,
Speaker 1: I'm not able to sew that up with like a
Speaker 1: I have to.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting hearing about that. And I love the
Speaker 2: idea that your doctors prescribing you were other breps who
Speaker 2: are just a little further down the corridor than you were.
Speaker 2: And that's that makes me happy.
Speaker 1: Good you had that support.
Speaker 2: Okay, so next question, what quality do you like least
Speaker 2: about yourself?
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing that first came to mind is selfishness.
Speaker 1: And it's weird because the selfishness I feel now at
Speaker 1: age forty six, I think, I am you.
Speaker 2: Look forty six, thank you in a nice way. I'm
Speaker 2: fifty three, so I think is a spring chicken.
Speaker 1: We're very foxy fifty three.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I no, people can't see you. It is
Speaker 1: interesting that you do wear a ball gown that barely
Speaker 1: fits the train of your ball gown barely fits into
Speaker 1: the little studio, which is funny.
Speaker 2: Your rider is weird, and you insisted on me wearing this,
Speaker 2: So that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: That's the funniest possible. Yes, And like I said, you're
Speaker 1: wearing it and you and you said it's because I insisted.
Speaker 1: That's the funniest thing I've heard in several months. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what I was gonna say is the selfishness that
Speaker 1: I feel at forty six is not very different from
Speaker 1: the selfishness I felt as a little kid. It's weird,
Speaker 1: is it like Boston Irish Catholic like guilt that you're
Speaker 1: born with, Because as a little kid, I can remember
Speaker 1: doing chores like sweeping the kitchen and being like, I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody's going to see that pile. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sweep it, you know, And in that moment, I'm.
Speaker 2: Not getting credit for it.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it right. And even in that moment,
Speaker 1: and we're talking, being nine, being like I'm a piece
Speaker 1: of shit, Like only a piece of shit wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: And my parents never called me a piece of shit. Yes,
Speaker 1: they grew up in Catholic orphanages and Catholic schools and
Speaker 1: were abused by nuns, nikes and stuff, so maybe they
Speaker 1: couldn't help it pass a little that at all? But
Speaker 1: why did I feel that way? And then when I
Speaker 1: found booze at age twelve was the first time I
Speaker 1: got drunk before I figured out that you could put
Speaker 1: something in your body that would make everything magic and perfect.
Speaker 1: I would steal and like vandalize, and then it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can vandalize yourself and then everything seems great, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to do things externally. You can just
Speaker 1: pour booze and feel amazing. That felt really good. And
Speaker 1: so now still there's a part of me that is
Speaker 1: still like the little kid who's like sweep the whole floor.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so weird.
Speaker 2: Like, but how is that selfish a little twelve year old?
Speaker 1: So I don't think it is. So I guess we're
Speaker 1: discovering in real time here. My answer is not rational, right.
Speaker 2: I can't believe that as a human being you would
Speaker 2: have a non rational to a traumatic question.
Speaker 1: Oh. I mean another one that would perhaps be more
Speaker 1: rational is anger, you know, which is also something I
Speaker 1: really need to start thinking about more because I'm the
Speaker 1: largest person in my house by a lot. Until recently,
Speaker 1: I weighed more than the other four people put together.
Speaker 2: And no wonder you want them to assist on you,
Speaker 2: I know, right, just.
Speaker 1: Balances that, like everybody in my house is allowed to
Speaker 1: get angry except me because I'm big, and it's scary
Speaker 1: when I get angry, you know. And I don't hit
Speaker 1: people or anything like that, but sure I'll yell or swear.
Speaker 1: And nobody likes to get yelled or sworn at by
Speaker 1: somebody who's six foot. They just it's not pleasant, right,
Speaker 1: And so the kind of new thing I'm working on
Speaker 1: is trying to like figure out how do you be
Speaker 1: angry if you're giants? Yeah, because I don't want to
Speaker 1: scare my family, but they'll be like crazy dervishes and
Speaker 1: then I'm like god damn it and fist on the table, right,
Speaker 1: and then people start crying, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so it's sort of a weird one because I
Speaker 1: just said earlier you have to feel emotions as you
Speaker 1: have them. You don't have to act on them and
Speaker 1: like do crazy stuff. But I'm not a bad person
Speaker 1: because I'm angry. Nobody is. You know.
Speaker 2: I wonder if there is a field where one can
Speaker 2: go just to experience.
Speaker 1: A real physical field you're yeah.
Speaker 2: Like your anger. Wait, there's a great roomy quote that
Speaker 2: I'm going to butcher out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and
Speaker 2: right doing. There is a field. I'll meet you there,
Speaker 2: And I really like that, But I actually wish there
Speaker 2: was a physical field where one could go and actually
Speaker 2: be experience orientially angry, because I sometimes you don't want
Speaker 2: to channel it into something else. We live in polite
Speaker 2: society and we don't want to frighten our children. But
Speaker 2: that expression of anger. I've screamed underwater when I was
Speaker 2: angry when my mom died and I buried her ashes
Speaker 2: at the place where I surf, and one day I
Speaker 2: was so sad and so angry that she was at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the sea and not sitting on the
Speaker 2: beach drinking of old Crantonic and I went under and
Speaker 2: I screamed so loudly, and it was just about the
Speaker 2: most satisfying thing I wonder. I just wonder about the
Speaker 2: expression of it, and I know that it's difficult to
Speaker 2: do that. And then all the idea of using yourself
Speaker 2: as a crucible that we put anger in and turning
Speaker 2: it into something else, I know that's positive and.
Speaker 1: It's weird, and I'm thinking about it because now I'm
Speaker 1: five years from my son's death, and I really kind
Speaker 1: of wouldn't chastise anybody else who was struggling with anger.
Speaker 2: Love. What person, place, or experience most altered your life.
Speaker 1: Let me give an example here. So I mentioned my
Speaker 1: drinking earlier, almost twenty two years ago. I drank into
Speaker 1: a blackout and I drove my car into the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Speaker 2: Where is that?
Speaker 1: There's like satellites all over the place. Which one did
Speaker 1: you drive into the corner of Pico and Genesee?
Speaker 2: I think, oh, exactly where that is?
Speaker 1: Okay, well, which is why I targeted it.
Speaker 2: Probably, but also drinking, try and forget that that part
Speaker 2: carrying out.
Speaker 1: No, I drank into a blackout and I don't remember
Speaker 1: the accident, but apparently I did drive into that building.
Speaker 1: No one else was involved, thank goodness. But I got
Speaker 1: badly hurt and was arrested and I could either go
Speaker 1: to jail or I could go to rehab and then
Speaker 1: a sober living halfway house. I chose re I've been
Speaker 1: sober living for a few months and started getting sober,
Speaker 1: and when I had that accident, nobody I knew heard
Speaker 1: about it and was like what they were like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we knew that was going to happen. So I knew
Speaker 1: I can't drink anymore. You know, my drinking not only
Speaker 1: is it a danger to myself, which I had been
Speaker 1: at peace with, you know, as pathetic as that might be,
Speaker 1: it was, that was okay. But when I realized, holy mackerel,
Speaker 1: if I could pass out and kill somebody, I'm behind
Speaker 1: the wheel and I don't even remember getting in the car.
Speaker 1: This has to stop. I don't want to kill anybody.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hurt anybody. And so it started
Speaker 1: to get sober and go to twelve Step meetings and stuff.
Speaker 1: And when I was sober for a year, this emacated
Speaker 1: junkie came into a meeting and I had on a
Speaker 1: Boston Red Sox cap and this guy goes, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: from Boston, and I go, oh cool, And I introduced
Speaker 1: myself and talked to him for a little bit. Was
Speaker 1: just getting off of pills and was a mess, you know,
Speaker 1: really close to death. And I gave him my phone number.
Speaker 1: I wrote it down a little piece of paper and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, hey, give me a call and
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the Red Sox and not taking
Speaker 1: pills and drinking bourbon. And then one year later at
Speaker 1: the same meeting and this muscular, tanned, beautiful guy comes
Speaker 1: up to me and is like, hey, Rob, and I
Speaker 1: said hello, and he goes, hey, it's Will. Remember we
Speaker 1: met a year ago. And he pointed to the corner
Speaker 1: where he had been, like, you know, curled up in
Speaker 1: a ball and he was like yeah, I was like skinny,
Speaker 1: a junkie, and you were nice to me and gave
Speaker 1: me a number and I was like, yeah, my god,
Speaker 1: like it was like a different person. And so we
Speaker 1: got to talking and he's like, listen, before I went
Speaker 1: off the rails, I worked at this camp for people
Speaker 1: with disabilities, and now they've got some spride under my belt.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start one up here in LA because this
Speaker 1: souther one was in Massachusetts. Would you be interested in
Speaker 1: volunteering at it? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: would be and so I did so, and I loved it,
Speaker 1: working with kids and adults with Down syndrome cerebral palsy,
Speaker 1: and it was really wonderful. I was twenty six, twenty
Speaker 1: seven and then summer was rolling around. So the mothership
Speaker 1: that his camp had was the satellite of was in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and I decided to go to that. And this was
Speaker 1: before Obama Care, so I had to get a job
Speaker 1: that had benefits. And so I was working at this
Speaker 1: terrible internet company and I walked into my boss's office
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm quitting, I think, because I'm going
Speaker 1: to go volunteer at this camp for a few weeks.
Speaker 1: And he goes, you know what, that would look good
Speaker 1: if we let you do that. That would be just
Speaker 1: be good for tax purposes. We can say like, oh,
Speaker 1: we volunteer, so go do it. We'll pay you half
Speaker 1: your salary while you're doing it, then you can come back.
Speaker 1: And I was like what. It wasn't like hey, that's cool.
Speaker 1: It was like that would look good for us, so
Speaker 1: yet you're not. And I was like, oh all right.
Speaker 1: So I went and the day I got there, I
Speaker 1: met the woman who is now my wife. She was
Speaker 1: a counselor. Yeah, and the camp was one on one,
Speaker 1: so every counselor had one camper because it was heavy
Speaker 1: duty stuff, you know, like a teenager or an adult
Speaker 1: with cebral palsy y. You know, you're lifting them and
Speaker 1: bathing them and stuff. So we each had I had
Speaker 1: an adolescent with tarble palsy, and she had a teenager
Speaker 1: with cerebral palsy. And so I just met this beautiful
Speaker 1: woman who was a school teacher and was taking the
Speaker 1: summer to do this volunteer work. And she was in
Speaker 1: a bikini which I recently found in storage when going
Speaker 1: through some old stuff. So it was so tiny. So
Speaker 1: in a sense, it wasn't my fault, but she you know,
Speaker 1: so we fell in love. Yeah, so this guy. So
Speaker 1: basically what I'm saying is like, the thing was I
Speaker 1: don't know was that? Was it my alcoholism? Was it
Speaker 1: the accident? Was it me putting out my hand in
Speaker 1: the spirit of the twelve Steps and saying like, hey
Speaker 1: man and doing what you're told in that program? You know?
Speaker 2: Was it him not calling you in that year and
Speaker 2: waiting to come back transform about exactly?
Speaker 1: And So to me, that's a pretty miraculous turn of events.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: So I wind up falling in love with that woman.
Speaker 1: We've been together for years, and then we wind up
Speaker 1: amazingly having a son who gets disabled by cancer, brain
Speaker 1: cancer and surgery, and winds up having things like feeding tubes,
Speaker 1: breathing tubes and all the things that we learned. How
Speaker 1: to take care of and maintain when we met.
Speaker 2: You know, the crazy, the magic of that of that
Speaker 2: wonder and that love. Yeah, none of this disallows the
Speaker 2: agony of what happened. But I'm so interested in how
Speaker 2: much grace from will being near death just saying hi
Speaker 2: to you and you probably maybe even because I've done
Speaker 2: it myself and alan on meetings through my life performatively
Speaker 2: oh hey, take my number, and then kind of forgetting
Speaker 2: about that person, re meeting him, his life transformed. You
Speaker 2: meeting your wife, you having Henry, you both being fully
Speaker 2: qualified in the largeness of both of your hearts, and
Speaker 2: also expertise from having volunteered to take care of him.
Speaker 1: Insane. It just goes to show you that you cannot
Speaker 1: know the effect of one tiny act of kindness can
Speaker 1: get rolling like a snowball and become a wonderful avalanche.
Speaker 2: In your life. Can you tell me about something that
Speaker 2: has grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like I just did with the thing
Speaker 1: of the car accident leading to being married to my
Speaker 1: wife and being having some skills in our back pockets
Speaker 1: ready to go to care for Henry. So that's one disaster.
Speaker 1: But let me think of another one, maybe like a.
Speaker 2: U turn, like in terms of things are going along
Speaker 2: one way and then something happens. It doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 2: to be a disaster. But I think the idea of
Speaker 2: we're attached to our life going in one way and
Speaker 2: something then happens that is ostensibly not what we've planned.
Speaker 2: It's challenging to talk about this when you've had a
Speaker 2: child who's passed away, because obviously you are here functioning,
Speaker 2: this beautiful dad and person and husband, and your very
Speaker 2: being here is the answer to this question. But I
Speaker 2: wonder if there is, if there was anything in your career,
Speaker 2: how did you dovetail out of working at the bad
Speaker 2: Internet company into stand up and writing and being a comedian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I went to Tish School of the Arts,
Speaker 1: where I studied musical theater, and thought like, oh, I
Speaker 1: want to do Broadway shows. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 2: I kind of want you to do that, so I'd
Speaker 2: love to maybe that can be on the cause.
Speaker 1: But then my final year of university I found live comedy,
Speaker 1: and this would be in nineteen ninety eight, and so
Speaker 1: as soon as I saw people making people laugh with
Speaker 1: stuff that they'd thought up themselves, that I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to smoke that crack. Rather than the mediocre
Speaker 1: joint of doing something somebody else wrote that they would
Speaker 1: do even if I weren't there, they would cast somebody
Speaker 1: else in it. I want to do stuff that only
Speaker 1: I can do. So I started doing that. And then
Speaker 1: after being like what they call a U five meaning
Speaker 1: somebody who has under five lines on a soap opera,
Speaker 1: you five. This is an AFTRA contract, not even a SAG,
Speaker 1: no control they time together. So it's so having like
Speaker 1: less than five lines on a couple episodes of all
Speaker 1: my children, I was like, obviously I need to go
Speaker 1: to Hollywood immediately. And so I go to Hollywood and
Speaker 1: you know, like six months later i'd drive into the building.
Speaker 1: So then, as I said, I had to get a
Speaker 1: job that I didn't want to do so that I
Speaker 1: could have health insurance. And it was a company that
Speaker 1: I can't use the word invent because they just kind
Speaker 1: of stole it from Friendster. But this company came up
Speaker 1: with my Space, and so we all kind of got
Speaker 1: some like clout from being in the same building as
Speaker 1: a guy who was like, let's copy Friendster and call
Speaker 1: it MySpace. And so people are like, oh wow, like
Speaker 1: you helped invent MySpace and I was like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't. So I kind of like failed upward. I
Speaker 1: wasn't good at it. I hated it. And then I
Speaker 1: would get laid off periodically and go to another company
Speaker 1: do like the internet stuff, for like an auto loan
Speaker 1: company or a makeup company. And when I got laid
Speaker 1: off from the third company got raided or something. One
Speaker 1: of them later wound up dead in a motel that
Speaker 1: had burned like a really rich guy's found in a
Speaker 1: CD motel that it was just like exploded. So I'm
Speaker 1: at these companies which are not feeding my soul, to
Speaker 1: say the least. And I get laid off from the
Speaker 1: third one, and I was like it's time. I'm so,
Speaker 1: what did you do? I'm a comedian. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: so I'm doing this. This is so funny.
Speaker 2: The motel exploded in flames.
Speaker 1: This is hilario a switch fuld. Yeah, I guess this
Speaker 1: would be like two thousand and seven or so, and
Speaker 1: I just said it's now or never. So then I
Speaker 1: just started doing stand up in La in La.
Speaker 2: Like all those clubs, just like going.
Speaker 1: Multiple sets every night, driving from club to club to
Speaker 1: the theater to bar to thie restaurant where people are like,
Speaker 1: oh no, there's a comedy show happening. And I just
Speaker 1: kept doing that, and so I went from having a
Speaker 1: little bit of money in the bank to no money
Speaker 1: in the bank, to being horrifically in debt, to my
Speaker 1: wife being like, oh my god, what have I got
Speaker 1: myself into? And it was funny. I was telling our
Speaker 1: babysitter about this last night. At one point my wife
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I like Rob, He's a nice person,
Speaker 1: he has good jeens. He isn't gonna be able to
Speaker 1: raise a family because so what I'm gonna do is
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get pregnant and literally probably won't raise the
Speaker 1: child with him, but I'm getting to the point where
Speaker 1: I kind of need to have kids, and so I'll
Speaker 1: just get pregnant because people have done that and then
Speaker 1: and raised the kid on their own. Or maybe I'll
Speaker 1: meet somebody, meet somebody who is employeable. Maybe And then
Speaker 1: weeks after she got pregnant, I got a couple jobs
Speaker 1: at once, like a job writing for my first TV show.
Speaker 1: Because at this point I'm sending packets of jokes to
Speaker 1: Kimmel Conan Chelsea Handler trying to be a late writer.
Speaker 2: Who gave you the first gig.
Speaker 1: It was a show called Ridiculousness on MTV. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a late night show. It's a show that's still running
Speaker 1: and dominates MTV. Like there's no music, yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: just Ridiculousness, which is like a funny home videos show
Speaker 1: hosted by the skater and entrepreneur Rob Dirdick, and so
Speaker 1: it's very funny. I was on the first season of
Speaker 1: this show, Ridiculousness, and that changed my life. And shortly
Speaker 1: after that I got a book deal, and then I
Speaker 1: got to make a pilot for Comedy Central and it began, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I started to be able to earn a living
Speaker 1: from just jokes and writing and acting and stuff, whereas
Speaker 1: before that I super didn't, or rather I did upon
Speaker 1: graduation from school. And then when I drove into the building,
Speaker 1: that stopped and then just had a what we'll call
Speaker 1: I don't know if I was called a fallow period,
Speaker 1: because it was necessary. I think that's sixty the ground
Speaker 1: was being fertilized.
Speaker 2: That is my podcast.
Speaker 4: And I can't tell you how oh, I can't tell
Speaker 4: you how much I'm going to listen to this and
Speaker 4: remember things when I need to be reminded of things.
Speaker 1: I can't believe how honest I was with you and
Speaker 1: talked about things that I wouldn't normally ever talk about it.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you did and were and we
Speaker 2: hug your wife from me, I will And have you
Speaker 2: got a fifteen year old?
Speaker 1: Is? No? My oldest is twelve?
Speaker 2: Ah? The twelve year old?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I see, because Henry was born in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. Yeah, I got it. Well, maybe we'll
Speaker 2: all cross paths in the park. We can go and
Speaker 2: play cricket instead of softball.
Speaker 1: Wow. I'll have to learn how. But if you're willing
Speaker 1: to be patient with me, it's really good.
Speaker 2: I'd bowl under arm to you anyway. Okay, great, Thank you.
Speaker 2: You're an angel.
Speaker 1: You are.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me
Speaker 2: Mini Driver, Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with
Speaker 2: production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2: The theme music is also by Me and additional music
Speaker 2: by Aaron Kaufman. Special banks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day,
Speaker 2: Henry Driver, Lisa Castello, a Nick oppenheim, A, Nick Mueller
Speaker 2: and Annette Wolfe at w kPr, Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor,
Speaker 2: Morgan Lavoy and man gesh Her Tigadore