Episode 1116 - Rosie O'Donnell
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening quarantined damn some days right some days where's the time go is there too much time what day is it
Marc:What are we going to do today?
Marc:Wake up like what's the plan for food?
Marc:I just woke up, but I need to structure my day around the food.
Marc:Let's move towards something.
Marc:First, maybe something in the morning, then maybe something in the afternoon.
Marc:Don't over snack it.
Marc:No over snacking it.
Marc:I know that my experience is just a minority experience in a sense.
Marc:A lot of people out there with families.
Marc:And that cannot be easy.
Marc:And I wish there was something I could do to help you.
Marc:You can't even disappear now.
Marc:I have to assume crime is down.
Marc:But I have to assume that, sadly, emotional abuse is probably up.
Marc:let alone probably domestic abuse as well.
Marc:I know that there are sticklers for staying in.
Marc:I'm not encouraging reckless behavior, but I'm saying get away from the people you love if you're starting to hate them.
Marc:Somehow.
Marc:Put on that mask.
Marc:Take a fucking walk.
Marc:Go out to your car.
Marc:Just sit in it for fuck's sake.
Marc:If that's what you have to do.
Marc:Sit in the car.
Marc:Listen to the music.
Marc:Drive around the fucking block.
Marc:Don't hit anybody.
Marc:Some people don't have their masks on correctly.
Marc:And they might not be seeing well.
Marc:Don't text and drive.
Marc:But god damn it.
Marc:If it comes down to you.
Marc:hurting your partner, hurting your kid, or getting the fuck out of the house and taking a breath, do it.
Marc:Do it.
Marc:Be responsible.
Marc:Don't go crazy.
Marc:But get out before you hurt yourself or others.
Marc:I'm not hearing a lot of that talk.
Marc:There's some of that talk.
Marc:I'm talking to Rosie O'Donnell today, and this will be the first time we do the not-in-person talk, which I don't love, but this is the world we're living in right now.
Marc:We're using a thing called Squadcast, I believe it's called.
Marc:And I get on a video chat with somebody, but the video just burns away.
Marc:Not to be saved, and the audio should be... We tried to find the one with the best audio, so at least I can look at the person.
Marc:But it's still a little weird.
Marc:You know, I'm talking to Rosie.
Marc:She's got... Her kids are around.
Marc:One steps into frame.
Marc:So it isn't the same.
Marc:Maybe I'll get the hang of it.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:Did a little shorter talk than usual, but I'm going to pull my producer Brendan in here in a little while.
Marc:I'm going to get him on the horn, on the high-tech vid horn.
Marc:Because he used to work for Rosie.
Marc:He was her producer on Sirius for like a year and a half maybe.
Marc:Maybe he'll give us some insight.
Marc:But we start, Rosie brings him up immediately because he's kind of wrangling things on his side of the country.
Marc:Also, what a parade of fucking clowns on TV, right?
Marc:I mean, come on.
Marc:Bunch of infantile adults dressed up like fucking soldiers protesting in front of state capitals against governors who are trying to do the best thing for the majority of the population in their state.
Marc:And these idiots, these children, not many of them.
Marc:I think it's important to remember that that bit of theater, whenever it's provoked, it's never that many people.
Marc:It's a minority in the country.
Marc:And they truly are brain-fucked morons who just follow orders from a pathological liar because it makes them feel good.
Marc:Look, I'm the first to...
Marc:copped to a certain amount of childishness.
Marc:You know, we all want what we want and it upsets us when we can't get it.
Marc:I saw something on TV, Amazon guy, a guy who worked on Amazon saying that, you know, look, you know, our conditions aren't great and, you know, we're putting ourselves in harm's way here in these warehouses and people are not, it's not all about essential things.
Marc:And I talked to my buddy, Dean.
Marc:I also talked to my producer, Brendan.
Marc:You know, Dean's selling shit online.
Marc:Brendan said our merch is flying off the shelves all of a sudden, more than ever.
Marc:And it's just sort of interesting, the kind of culture we created, is that when people are bored or frustrated or aggravated, they still... The compulsion to buy shit that they may not need but want...
Marc:is a premium.
Marc:It's right there.
Marc:It's a primary need in this culture.
Guest:I want my thing.
Guest:I want that.
Guest:Can I have that?
Marc:Yes, yes, you can.
Marc:Just order it.
Marc:Let's order it.
Marc:How soon can we get it?
Guest:I want it now.
Marc:Will you still want it tomorrow?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:How about three days from now?
Marc:Well, that'll be surprised.
Marc:It'll be like a present.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's the thing I wanted that I didn't need.
Marc:That's how our economy flows.
Marc:Is that worth dying for?
Marc:That's the other side of it.
Marc:You get these babies out in the world storming around with their guns, big man children all suited up.
Marc:We're willing to die for this economy.
Marc:We want to be able to do... This is infringing on our freedom.
Marc:Protective measures against the first pandemic that any of these fucking idiots have ever been alive for.
Marc:None of us were alive in 1918.
Marc:This is the first thing.
Marc:And somehow or another, in this brain fuck time we're living in, where we have a fucking...
Marc:Craven president politicizing everything.
Marc:These fucking morons go out there and demand the right to get sick.
Marc:That it's totalitarian and that it's infringing on our liberties.
Marc:We all just want to get through this.
Marc:Hopefully in a few months we'll be somewhat past it.
Marc:What about that?
Marc:You can't wait?
Marc:You fucking babies.
Marc:You fucking babies with guns.
Marc:You
Marc:Unbelievable.
Marc:Plenty of infantilism to go around.
Marc:We all just want to get through this.
Marc:And if you want to minimize it, that's at your peril.
Marc:But again, I get it.
Marc:Again, I can get belligerent.
Marc:When's this going to be done?
Marc:Why can't I?
Marc:My buddy Dean came over the other day because I got sent a barbecue care package from Kristen down at Opie's outside Austin in Spicewood.
Marc:And I couldn't eat all the fucking meat, and that seemed like an emergency to me.
Marc:I can't have all this meat sitting around in my house.
Marc:So I had Dean come over.
Marc:He showed up in his gloves and his mask, drove 10 minutes, putting the world at risk with that drive.
Marc:And I put the shit on my Traeger, got it reheated through.
Marc:He sat six feet away from me, me and Lynn.
Marc:Sliced up the shit, slid it down the table, had a nice chat.
Marc:Masks off for the food.
Marc:And then he went along his way.
Marc:It was nice to socialize at a distance.
Marc:Again, you decide what you need to not lose your mind, hurt yourself or others.
Marc:That is also important.
Marc:There's a deliberation that needs to go on there, some sort of negotiation with self.
Marc:Don't go crazy, either in behavior or by mentally losing it.
Marc:What have you been doing for fun?
Marc:We did something we hadn't done as a couple.
Marc:We did the let's go through our pictures, our old pictures.
Marc:Have you done that?
Marc:Any of you doing that at home?
Marc:How old are you people?
Marc:I mean, like hard copies.
Marc:I got a box of Polaroid.
Marc:It's like a...
Marc:an image raffle for my life.
Marc:You just reach in, you pull out one, you're like, oh yeah, that was 1983.
Marc:That was at a party.
Marc:Oh, I remember that girl.
Marc:Oh fuck, what was her name?
Marc:Play that game.
Marc:That's the picture lottery game.
Marc:If you've got a long past of pictures, just like make a mess of them like a puzzle.
Marc:Put them in a bag or a box and reach in and pull one out and go like, oh shit.
Marc:I remember that night.
Marc:That was no good.
Marc:I wonder what happened to that guy.
Marc:Reach in, pull it out.
Marc:Oh, that dog died.
Marc:Reach in, pull it out.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:Look it.
Marc:We were in love then.
Marc:That didn't end well.
Marc:Reach in, pull one out.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:My mom bought me those pants.
Marc:Hours of fun.
Marc:Jog your memory.
Marc:She showed me some of her pictures.
Marc:I showed her some of mine.
Marc:Been thinking a lot about things in the past, make sure I have no unresolved amends to make.
Marc:I texted Dave Cross about something that happened.
Marc:It's more about not understanding why I did it, really.
Marc:And it wasn't even that big a transgression, really.
Marc:Years ago.
Marc:Jeez, it must be in the late 80s.
Marc:I believe me and my girlfriend at the time, Kim, went over to Dave Cross's girlfriend at the time, Faith's house, where Dave was staying.
Marc:And they'd just gotten a new futon for the living room, like a couch, black futon.
Marc:And we got fucked up.
Marc:The four of us had some food, I think, got fucked up and it got late and they were going to crash.
Marc:And I decided, like, why don't we just crash here on their new futon?
Marc:And for some reason, like we had sex on it and we got we got some mess on there.
Marc:Got got some cum on their new black futon.
Marc:And it was an embarrassing morning.
Marc:It was an embarrassing sort of like, you know.
Marc:Yeah, sorry.
Marc:It's pretty clear what happened here.
Marc:And I don't know what to say, but like in a deeper way, I don't.
Marc:Why didn't I just take a cab home?
Marc:Why didn't we just leave?
Marc:Why did I have to do that?
Marc:Am I an animal?
Marc:Did I have to mark the territory?
Marc:Did I have to?
Marc:What the fuck was that about?
Marc:So that really what I was hung up with.
Marc:And I texted that to Dave.
Marc:I said, I'm sorry about that.
Marc:I don't know if you remember, but about the black futon.
Marc:And he sent something funny back that I can't read to you because it's, you know, it's private.
Marc:And I think it doesn't bother him.
Marc:It's not stuck in his craw in any way.
Marc:There's obviously bigger problems.
Marc:But why?
Marc:Why did I stay?
Marc:Why did we stay?
Marc:Why couldn't we have left?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:That's an investigation that's ongoing in my heart and mind in terms of how I am with people and with friends.
Marc:But it's an easy mistake.
Marc:You're fucked up.
Marc:I just want to crash.
Marc:But I could have taken a cab.
Marc:I wasn't broke.
Marc:What was that about?
Marc:What did I have to prove?
Marc:I listened to Fiona Apple's new record.
Marc:I talked to her many years ago.
Marc:It was kind of great, a little loopy, but it was fun, both of us.
Marc:But I remember the Idler Wheel 2012.
Marc:To me, it felt really raw and almost uncomfortable listening to it because of the emotions.
Marc:And it seems now with Fetch the Bolt Cutters that she's really wrangled it all together, wrangled it in, reined it in and focused that shit.
Marc:And it does not disappoint.
Marc:That record is deep.
Marc:It's disturbing.
Marc:It's honest.
Marc:and puts a lot of things in a poetic perspective that I wouldn't have seen them in otherwise, varied in musicality and rhythms.
Marc:It's just, it's a great record.
Marc:I know I'm not the only one saying that.
Marc:So kudos to Fiona Apple for pulling it out, for pulling herself out, for fetching those bolt cutters to get out of her goddamn head.
Marc:Good job.
Marc:I did not listen to the second Bob Dylan release.
Marc:I've grown impatient and irritated with that generation to a degree.
Marc:I'm happy that they're all still alive, but I mean, I can't continue mining the words for some sort of like, it's got to be in here, man.
Marc:The answer has got to be in here.
Marc:I think honestly, for the past five or six years at least,
Marc:Most of Dylan's output are just rough drafts of his last words.
Marc:More than a social statement, it's more of a... They seem to be an ongoing reflection of his own dimming.
Marc:Not that I don't love the guy.
Marc:I love the old Jew.
Marc:It's nice to see Mick Jagger playing... You can't always get what you want.
Marc:His voice sounded great.
Marc:His guitar sounded great.
Marc:Charlie Watts looked like he was 100 years old.
Marc:Keith kind of looked...
Marc:Kind of focused.
Marc:Ron Wood, of course, put on a show.
Marc:But bottom line, no matter how sad and beautiful simultaneously that Stones thing was, Mick sounded great.
Marc:And on the film front, for some reason, Lynn had a copy of this film that she really liked and I'd never heard of.
Marc:It's called Locke.
Marc:L-O-C-K-E.
Marc:With that guy, is his name Tom Hardy?
Marc:That genius, that fucking chameleon.
Marc:It is really kind of a stunning little movie.
Marc:He's a genius in it.
Marc:And the entire thing takes place in a car.
Marc:It's 2013.
Marc:But there are voices.
Marc:Olivia Colman is in it.
Marc:She does a voice.
Marc:Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, who was a genius in Fleabag.
Marc:And it's just an intense, stunning bit of cinema.
Marc:If you have time, I would search it out.
Marc:So Rosie O'Donnell.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Before we get to that, let's get Brendan MacDonald on the horn here.
Marc:Let me see if I can do that.
Marc:There's the little sound, Brendan.
Marc:That means we're on.
Marc:We're on.
Marc:We are.
Marc:Look at this.
Marc:I can see you.
Marc:You can see me.
Marc:I'm right there.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:No one's ever going to see this, but they can hear it.
Guest:They can.
Guest:And that was why we did this.
Guest:We thought, okay, let's do this so people can hear what we're doing, but you can also feel comfortable like you do in your show.
Guest:You're sitting here across from me and we're talking.
Marc:Right, but I don't see your kid running around.
Marc:Rosie's kid was running around.
Marc:Granted, she's 20 or something, so in and out.
Guest:Well, and that's going to be the new environment that we're in.
Guest:Like now you're not just dragging people past your cat litter boxes.
Guest:They're dragging you into their house and you're seeing their life.
Marc:Oh, I'm going to adjust.
Marc:We're going to have to make the I'm going to have to adapt.
Guest:Well, that's what I thought.
Guest:This was a good one to actually make that jump with, because, you know, people probably don't know this.
Guest:You know, we haven't really.
Guest:talked about it in detail.
Guest:But when we started doing the podcast, I was working for Rosie.
Guest:That was actually the job that I got when we got fired from Air America doing the break room.
Guest:They were starting up the Rosie show and they contacted me immediately.
Guest:They knew the show got canceled, break room, and they were like, hey, I hear you're looking for work.
Guest:Literally the day after that show got canceled.
Guest:they were bringing me in to come do rosie and i was sitting there going like what am i gonna do oh no right and i but i also wanted to keep doing the thing with you so so we started doing that show we were like doing the prep and the planning for it while i'm interviewing and getting this job with rosie yeah and then that
Guest:Rosie's show on Sirius allowed me the opportunity to like have a life and have a paycheck while we spent a year plus getting the podcast off the ground.
Marc:Yeah, I was loading envelopes in my house in Highland Park to send out swag to people that were donating $10 a month.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like doing it in secret.
Guest:Like I didn't tell anybody at Sirius, like, oh, I'm doing this secondary show.
Guest:And that was, I mean, like every time I was doing another job, it was this entirely different world from what we were doing on the podcast.
Guest:Like we, the Rosie show, we produced that like a regular TV talk show.
Guest:Like we would go, we produced it out of her house.
Guest:She lived in upstate New York.
Guest:I would go up there every day
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Travel up to her house.
Guest:And it was like there were seven or eight people around, like sidekicks and her friends that she wanted in the room with her.
Guest:And then we'd drive famous people up there to be on the show with her.
Guest:It was a crazy thing.
Guest:She'd play live games.
Guest:She wanted like contests, like on her old TV show.
Guest:The fact that we were doing this, like basically like a simulacrum of her old TV talk show, but on the radio.
Guest:It just couldn't have been more different than what you and I were doing, like flying by the seat of our pants.
Guest:I think it actually gave me a lot of juice to produce the podcast the way we did.
Guest:It just felt so different and freeing that I was like, all right, well, during the day, I do this mammoth radio talk show.
Guest:And then at night, I go home and I make my little podcast that nobody's going to hear.
Marc:Well, the great thing was also is that it must have been a relief because when you work around her, especially at that point, you can't get out from under that.
Marc:I mean, it's like she becomes part of your whole head and life.
Marc:You're like an appendage of Rosie O'Donnell.
Guest:Well, I definitely had to prove myself to her.
Guest:When I first interviewed for that job, she was like, who is this 12-year-old?
Guest:This is the guy who's going to run my show?
Guest:She had no desire to have a kid producing her first foray into radio.
Guest:And I basically was not unlike what I had to do with you, that I had to just show her through my competence and professionalism, like, oh, I can trust this guy.
Marc:Like he'll he'll deliver for me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I wasn't interviewing anybody.
Marc:I was just in a panic.
Marc:And you would show up and go like, maybe if you just do it like this.
Marc:OK, thank you.
Marc:And then two days later, be like, what's that guy's name again?
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:But I mean, for her, it was more like she was like, I always just felt like she could at any time turn around and be like that guy.
Guest:Get rid of him.
Guest:But, you know, it happened pretty quickly that she was like, oh, OK, I get him.
Guest:He'll do this thing for me.
Guest:And the thing from my end, again, like not unlike with you, is that I noticed right away that like, oh, my God, she is like an undeniable talent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like this can work because she's just good.
Guest:I like her charisma and her skills at being a performer and a presenter.
Guest:are unparalleled.
Guest:Like I was watching the other day, I was watching a league of their own.
Guest:Mostly because I just love baseball so much and I miss it.
Guest:And so I was like, whoa, give me any baseball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's as good a baseball movie as there is.
Guest:So I was watching it and it is astounding.
Guest:That's like her first role in anything.
Guest:And the movie starts to take pains to give her moments.
Guest:Like there's just gratuitous Rosie stuff in that movie because they know they got a star on their hands.
Guest:That's wild.
Guest:out of nowhere yeah and and i remember feeling that way when she started the radio show like never had done radio before and we were really just kind of trying to design it to her strengths and that worked because she could just she could hold a room if you put seven or eight people in the room with her while she was doing it she's just like a dynamo like like it just the way she turns it on is crazy well i think that
Marc:from how she reacted to you being, you know, uh, my producer and, and having to engage with you again for this thing, you know, she, she understands how talented you are in, in, in a certain way.
Marc:Like there's certain, like people like me and people like her who are these like, you know, kind of self-centered charismatic people that drive the thing.
Marc:I mean, when it comes right down to it, you need to have someone around to just, uh, sometimes just say like, all right, so how do I feel about this?
Yeah.
Marc:What's the angle on this?
Guest:I don't even think there were times where I don't even think it mattered whether or not the thing I was saying was something that she would then reiterate or repeat.
Guest:She just needed to like hear me say something.
Guest:Like if she was like, what's the point of this thing?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'd give her an opinion on it.
Guest:She'd be like, all right, at least it's a thing.
Guest:Right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's loaded.
Marc:There's something to it.
Marc:Now I'll just process that.
Guest:I watched her also.
Guest:Another thing that stands out to me about her as a public person in the world was she was my first real entry into seeing just how viciously
Guest:people will attack a public personality for sport and we then start to you and i encountered that a lot with like as we started to have guests on the show particularly female guests always that's why we got rid of the comment board yes on our website because it would just turn into a barrage of
Guest:garbage, violence, and hateful invective against women.
Marc:It's almost always just women.
Guest:We were like, don't we have a pretty genteel audience?
Guest:It never made any sense why all of a sudden this would happen.
Guest:It, of course, started to make more sense once we got into the current environment that we're in of trolls and 4chan and Gamergate and then leading right up to Trump.
Guest:It's just kind of...
Guest:I guess not a coincidence that Trump was this early antagonist of Rosie and was making a name for himself just being a bully toward Rosie.
Guest:When you see that that's a...
Guest:I watched her get attacked with that kind of stuff every day.
Guest:And I'm sure she still does of just this garbage online antagonism toward her out of glee, out of fun.
Guest:And I just I can't imagine what it must be like to have to shoulder that.
Marc:Well, she's also like one of these people that she's she's opinionated.
Marc:She's got an like an edge to her.
Marc:Like, right.
Marc:So she she's going to get it no matter what.
Guest:I never saw it get to a point where when that stuff was happening to her, it debilitated her or anything.
Guest:But I can't imagine.
Guest:I wasn't around her when the Trump stuff was first happening, like back in 2007.
Guest:And I definitely wasn't around when it was happening as the guy was running for president.
Guest:And he's on a debate stage, like making fun of Rosie O'Donnell for the in front of the world.
Guest:Like, I can't imagine that felt good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The weird thing that's happening with me and I imagine with her, too, is after a certain point, you know, this stuff, there's so much of it that you kind of shut down to it.
Marc:I think part of it's healthy and part of it isn't.
Marc:But like this morning, I woke up and I'm like, oh, shit, Nazis in my feed.
Marc:And you just kind of have a day.
Marc:I mean, you have to fight the urge to engage with the worst of people.
Marc:At least I do.
Marc:I don't know if she has that.
Marc:But there's that moment where for some reason people say good things or nice things.
Marc:It's only the Nazis.
Marc:And I'm like, I'm going to I'm going to respond to this.
Marc:I'm going to tell this guy to watch my special.
Marc:It's like, then he'll get it.
Marc:He'll get it.
Marc:And I got to stop myself from doing that.
Yeah.
Guest:But the bottom line is I always thought you and her would have a good conversation.
Guest:And the problem though is that she lives in New York and she's not the kind of person who will shift around her life to do show business stuff.
Guest:That was one thing I learned about working with her.
Guest:She's living a very fine life up there.
Guest:you know, she doesn't need to do interviews or talk shows or whatever.
Guest:And so like, she wasn't making trips out there to LA to, you know, do podcasts and whatnot.
Guest:And so we just never lined it up.
Guest:It was always crazy to me.
Guest:That's like one of the people, like of the two people that I've worked very closely with the two of you, you know, share a lot in common and would probably have a good conversation.
Guest:So once it became time to start doing these,
Guest:Distance podcasts.
Guest:I just thought she'd be a perfect one.
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:First one.
Marc:First outing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First out of the gate.
Guest:And then, you know, we'll keep trying this.
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:Let's see what it let's see what we can do.
Marc:OK, well, let's do let's let's get into her.
Marc:And she's got a lot of nice things to say about you right up front.
Marc:Oh, that's very nice.
Marc:But she's in the upcoming limited series on HBO.
Marc:I know this much is true.
Marc:That's premiering May 10th.
Marc:She's also been raising money for the Actors Fund, helping people in the performing arts who are out of work or dealing with financial hardship because of the pandemic.
Marc:You can go to actorsfund.org for more on that.
Marc:And this is me, me and Rosie talking.
Marc:The first one from across the country.
Marc:so was that like old times with brendan i can't believe it's eight years though it was a newborn baby he got is that isn't that wild it's crazy it goes so quick he used to be what he was your producer right like every day you saw that guy i saw that guy every day and he's the smartest guy in the room is that he's a genius i don't know i would not uh my life would not be what it is without that guy
Guest:Yeah, I can imagine.
Guest:He knew everything.
Guest:Whenever I had a question about anything political, he would jump right in and know the answers and everything.
Guest:Tremendous asset.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Film, politics, sports.
Marc:I can only think about myself most of the time.
Guest:Well, as a comedian, that's your job.
Marc:It is my job.
Marc:How are you holding up over there?
Guest:I'm pretty good.
Guest:You know, I got three kids here with me, which is interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:20 year old, a 17 year old and a seven year old.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:So that's kind of a full time hassle of trying to get what each of them needs for their age range and their schooling and all that.
Marc:You know, have you have you ever had this kind of bonding time with these kids until this time?
Guest:No way.
Guest:Not like this age.
Guest:I mean, when they were all little, of course.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not like now when they don't have a choice but to be home with mommy.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:So is, uh, are you, are you learning new things?
Guest:Well, my daughter started painting, you know, I paint a lot of art studio in the garage here.
Guest:My daughter started painting and I'm very impressed with what she's been doing.
Guest:You know, I'm totally out of frustration.
Guest:She's doing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hi.
Guest:You want to say hello?
Guest:Come say hi.
Guest:It's Mark Marin who does a great podcast.
Guest:You'd love called what the fuck.
Guest:Vivian.
Marc:Hi, how are you?
Marc:Nice to see you.
Guest:Yeah, do you listen to that one?
Guest:I've heard of it.
Guest:Yeah, you've heard of it.
Guest:That's her boyfriend.
Guest:Give me a break.
Guest:Let me go do this.
Guest:I've got about an hour.
Guest:All right, so do you want me to meet?
Guest:Whatever you get, get me something.
Guest:Okay, that's easy.
Marc:So I was trying to think back on why we missed each other over the last three decades.
Marc:How is it possible that I never met you?
Guest:I know it's so weird.
Guest:And I was thinking back, did I ever work with you?
Guest:Like in San Francisco, I had maybe a thing of, was it San Francisco?
Marc:I just, I know that like I was, I was in Boston in 88.
Marc:That's when I started really working professionally.
Marc:And I think I missed you on the standup spotlight by a year or two.
Marc:Cause when I did it, it was Bobby Collins.
Marc:So I didn't get to do it when you were there, but when did you start doing standup?
Guest:When I was 16.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I was in a comedy show that you do to make fun of the teachers every year at my high school.
Guest:There was a guy whose older brother was a stand-up comic.
Guest:He was like the youngest by a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And his brother was Richie Minovini.
Guest:Did you know him?
Guest:I didn't know him.
Guest:Yeah, he owned a comedy club, the East Side Comedy Club on Long Island.
Marc:Was that the one where Judd Apatow's mom worked?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:OK.
Guest:And so I that was like my home club.
Guest:It was about 20 minutes from my house.
Guest:And I started working there when he came over to me at the show and said, you're going to be a stand up.
Guest:I said, no, I'm going to be on Broadway.
Guest:And he said, well, why don't you start doing stand up and people would see you for Broadway?
Guest:And I thought, oh, that might be a good way to get seen.
Marc:Were you always a Broadway fan when you were a kid?
Guest:Yes, very much.
Guest:My mother had every Broadway cast album and we weren't allowed to touch them, but she would put them out on for a special night of like Oklahoma or South Pacific.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How many kids were there?
Guest:I'm the middle of five.
Marc:And you all would just sit around and sing and listen?
Guest:Well, not sing so much, but you could tell what mood she was in by what she put on.
Guest:And you could tell, coming home from school, if you'd hear something sad like, Hello, darkness, my old friend, the sound of silence.
Guest:She'd put that on and I'd be like, Oh, dear God.
Guest:I was like seven years old and I knew we're in trouble now.
Guest:But I worked a lot for so many years.
Guest:I started on the road when I was 18.
Guest:yeah I went to BU and I started working at the comedy connection and playing again Sam's and the ding oh yeah the ding ho played against Sam's in the basement Barry Katz's room that's right and the ding ho towards the end or was it thriving still
Guest:It was Lenny Clark's big night, and he put me on so many times.
Marc:That's nice of him.
Marc:He used to do like, he would host a show, he'd do like 45 minutes in between acts.
Guest:Yeah, he really did.
Guest:He couldn't stop himself.
Guest:But they loved him there.
Guest:He's like a king over there.
Guest:I can understand him feeling like he does there.
Marc:He's still kind of a king over there, I think.
Marc:I don't know what's left of the place, but it wasn't your goal really to stay in stand-up, but you really did the thing.
Marc:I mean, you did the road.
Guest:Yeah, well, you know, after I dropped out of college, I was like, I guess I got to do this full time and see if I can, you know, make a living doing this.
Guest:And so I started getting road gigs.
Guest:And then when I was 84, I was 22 years old, Ed McMahon's daughter happened to be in the East Side Comedy Club.
Guest:And I just was doing a spot.
Guest:And she came over to me and said, my dad's Ed McMahon, and I want you to be on the Star Search show.
Guest:And I was thinking, your dad is not Ed McMahon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:in huntington long island yeah right it was and i got on star search and that being like an open mic nighter open mic person to pretty much a headliner in like the middle of the country and what when you were doing that were you just a person that kind of like did you improvise did you have a whole shtick or did you just riff or what'd you do i didn't have a whole shtick from working so many years from like you know
Guest:18 to 22 so four years solid on the road i had like a you know good 35 minutes and then as you chop that up on star search you know it's it's show number seven and you screwed yeah i called some of my friends who were comics and said what can you give me man i need something i'm going out there with nothing and my friend gave me stuff gave me like a little one-liners and who did
Guest:Jeanette Barber.
Guest:She did it.
Guest:Do you remember her?
Marc:Yeah, I kind of do.
Guest:Shoemaker.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:The love master.
Guest:The love master.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He gave me some stuff.
Guest:The comics that I was friends with way back then, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was a big deal to get on Star Search because there was only like the Tonight Show and a woman wasn't getting on there, you know.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So like when you did when you were away from home, though, did your parents just sign off on you doing this?
Guest:Well, I didn't have a mom.
Guest:My mom died when I was 10 and my dad was kind of not really, um, you know, an influencer of our, what we did.
Guest:Now we were all pretty good kids.
Guest:We were all class president.
Guest:We were all, you know, popular high school kids, but he didn't have any say in sort of what I decided.
Guest:But when I think now that he let a 17 year old go to, uh,
Guest:Idaho to do a coffee gig like it blows my I don't let my kids go to the mall without calling me every 20 minutes you know right very little uh parental guidance in our childhood growing up it was sort of the five of us just kind of sticking together like a fist you know was he just passive or he just what he drank a lot and he you know had some really uh serious mental illness stuff in his family some suicides and
Guest:You know, a lot of alcoholism and Irish, dark Irish stuff.
Marc:Was he an actual immigrant?
Guest:Yeah, he came over when he was very little with some of his brothers and sisters.
Guest:And my grandmother came over first with some of the little kids.
Guest:And then my grandfather came over with the rest of them because he was like one of eight kids.
Marc:So do you like I love Ireland like I'm a Jew and I and I have this weird attraction to the place and I love going there.
Marc:Have you gone there and sort of tried to feel where what what is that historic darkness?
Marc:I don't get it.
Guest:Really is.
Guest:You just read O'Neill, you know.
Marc:Yeah, but it's so beautiful there.
Guest:It is so beautiful, although the weather sometimes gets you down.
Guest:But there is that whole, you know, my whole family, that kind of fighting depression all the time kind of feeling.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You get over there, I think.
Guest:And the way everyone deals with it, of course, is alcohol.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So there's a tremendous amount of alcohol abuse and all the shit that comes with that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:When my mother died, my father took five kids to Northern Ireland.
Marc:Yeah, I was just there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how was that?
Guest:It was 1973.
Guest:It was the height of the Troubles in Belfast, and that's where he took us to go after my mother died.
Guest:Thanks, Dad.
Marc:Was that an exciting trip?
Guest:No.
Guest:In fact, they didn't have milk, and we all wanted milk, and kids didn't drink milk there.
Guest:They drank tea.
Guest:Everything was burnt.
Guest:The food was horrible.
Guest:We wouldn't eat it.
Guest:We were crying all the time.
Guest:I don't know what he thought there was any goodness to be found over there then.
Marc:Is that where he was from?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I was just there.
Marc:It's heavy weather up there, with or without troubles.
Marc:I mean, just nature tosses you around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went there for that show, Who Do You Think You Are, where you bring a relative and you go find out about your family.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I took my brother Eddie and we went there and we went to the, you know, my grandmother was always saying to us, don't put me in the poorhouse.
Guest:And I was thinking, what the fuck is she talking about?
Guest:Put me in the poorhouse.
Guest:Then I went there and saw the poorhouse and I went, oh my God, I didn't even know this was real.
Guest:You know, when she died, we went, she lived in our house and we went into her room.
Guest:My dad went into her room and found like 50 years of checks from the government that
Guest:she had cashed and just put the envelopes back in the drawer in her room.
Guest:So we ended up with like $32,000, which for our family was being loaded.
Guest:And we bought a Plymouth Volare.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:AM radio.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:She didn't cash them?
Guest:She didn't cash them.
Guest:She just put all these checks in.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:You know, it was crazy to find afterwards.
Guest:It was like a fortune, like, you know, Agatha Christie mystery.
Guest:What was Nana doing with all the checks in her drawer?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:So do you find that?
Marc:I mean, what's your battle with depression on a day to day basis?
Guest:In 1999, in April, after Columbine, I went on meds.
Guest:And I had been going to a shrink really since I was like 20.
Guest:And every one of them had pretty much advised me going on meds.
Guest:But I did that Irish thing of, you know, you just pull yourself up from your bootstraps and it's not that bad.
Guest:And you don't dare do laundry in public, love.
Guest:That's what's the thing in our family, right?
Guest:Don't wear your dirty laundry.
Guest:But I have a great therapist.
Guest:I have a great psychopharmacologist.
Guest:And I know that I will never be off of them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm okay with that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like me, it is the fix that was needed.
Guest:And then I have at least a tool to stay above water, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then when I get sort of sucked down, the last few days I've been sleeping a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, my daughter said to me, Mom, are you getting sad?
Guest:And I thought, okay, it's time to kick it up a notch in my...
Guest:you know, prevent, prevent the suck from going all the way down.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And what, what, what is the diagnosis?
Marc:Was it bipolar or borderline?
Marc:What?
Guest:No, it was PTSD and major depressive disorder.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But what happened was when I was on that, my show and I was so, um,
Guest:you know, overwhelmed with all the success of it and what it meant.
Guest:And it was like a lot.
Guest:And then here comes Columbine and I'm like, well, I'm going to go after the NRA.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And we're going to take them down.
Guest:And then all the kids in the world are going to be safe in school.
Guest:Like I had a fantasy thinking, like magical thinking that a child has that I was going to be able to solve these problems in the nation.
Guest:And I also thought there would be others who wanted to be doing that, too, like a Justice League, like a celebrity Justice League.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Get all the celebrities together and they would all agree and we would form this big safety net for all of the, you know, vulnerable people in society.
Guest:That's really what I thought fame was was for.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that didn't pan out.
Marc:And that's when the shit fell fell in on you.
Guest:Fell in on me big time, April 99.
Guest:And then luckily I was medicated before 9-11 happened and then medicated while Katrina was happening.
Guest:And so, you know, I was I've been medicated since 99.
Guest:And I think without that, I probably wouldn't have survived those two.
Guest:And this one is a big challenge for me.
Guest:It's like world crises seem to hit me more than.
Guest:Personal things in my life that are, you know, when it's like a world crisis and there's nothing you can do about it, that's when I really seem to suffer.
Marc:Really?
Marc:And in this one, it's there's it's outside of the handling of it.
Marc:It's hard to place blame.
Marc:It is a biological problem in it.
Marc:And for me, because I have anxiety too, the one thing I know now in terms of where everyone's at is we're all in the same place.
Marc:We're all in our homes.
Marc:We're all freaked out.
Marc:And no one's doing anything.
Marc:So I'm not competing with anybody.
Marc:And there's a sort of peace of mind to it in a way.
Marc:And there's also a powerlessness to it.
Marc:So this one's not as...
Marc:Outside of dealing with the way it's being handled, like I have a certain amount of acceptance over the nature of it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:I have the opposite.
Guest:Just like I think it's the complete opposite.
Guest:What stirs my anxiety more than anything is when the person in charge is not doing what they're supposed to do.
Marc:Well, that's what I mean.
Marc:That's that's what I'm saying.
Marc:I'm saying I can accept the disease.
Marc:I know it's a disease and it's real, but I can't handle the way it's being handled.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I can't handle that.
Guest:And I also can't handle, like, you know, the levees breaking.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:What country are we in that we can't have PPE?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fucking crazy.
Guest:It's fucking crazy.
Marc:The powerlessness of it, too.
Marc:So you just get depressed.
Marc:You get angry as hell.
Marc:I mean, I've seen you get angry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But mostly...
Guest:I get angry when I have a place to speak out for it, if I have a microphone.
Guest:I feel like it's my duty the night that Goldman spoke at Union Square.
Guest:I'm like, this is going to be a rebel and I'm going to do good for people and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:But when I don't have a microphone and I'm just wallowing in the suffering...
Guest:Now, for now, it's the deaths and it's the perceived suffering of what's going to happen economically to our country for so long.
Guest:When I saw today, 2000 people in line for food in Dallas, people who've never used a food bank before.
Guest:And these are little one offs.
Guest:Imagine when that's all put together again, when we're one country again and not.
Guest:you know, the amount of people that are going to be in need.
Guest:It just boggles my mind.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, when I was a little kid, I saw, I saw Saigon being evacuated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I saw this walk up steps that they used to push up to the planes and a young kid kicked a woman and she fell out of the frame.
Guest:And I remember being like eight or nine years old and crying and saying, where, who is that woman?
Guest:We have to save her.
Guest:And my father, like, you don't even know that woman.
Guest:Don't you, don't you be watching the news?
Guest:You know?
Guest:to me being overwhelmed by other people's pain.
Marc:You know, what we're finding out like in terms of like this guy is president and then when something like this happens is that I don't know if I can believe that people are fundamentally good.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I do believe that.
Guest:I have to believe it like that.
Guest:I think November we're going to be a landslide and take him out.
Guest:That's what I have to believe.
Guest:I firmly believe that the heart of the nation is is bigger than his mental illness and people will rise to the occasion and vote him out.
Guest:That's what I hope.
Guest:Although you did hear him yesterday say that, you know, he got General Motors to make ventilators and Putin called and they need some.
Marc:I didn't hear that.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You had to listen to yesterday.
Guest:Like I rate them on batshit craziness, you know?
Marc:Oh, my.
Marc:And this your your history with him goes way back.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:How do you handle the amount of shit you must take on a daily basis from strangers and anonymous garbage?
Marc:Do you get engaged with it at all?
Guest:Well, not really.
Guest:I mean, my Twitter feed is like a pro-professional anti-Trump tirade, right?
Guest:Every nickel that I can get, I just put up there.
Guest:My Instagram, I try to do more of my family and not have it be so violently political.
Guest:I did have a relationship in terms of, you know, in 2007 when he...
Guest:forgave the miss junior universe for kissing a girl in greenwich village and then he did a press conference right before the view went on where he said you know i'm gonna forgive her i'm gonna grant her uh like absolution like he was a priest or something yeah i went to the wikipedia before the show started and i just listed everything about him facts facts that were even
Guest:Easily found.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What like literally batshit crazy like he is now.
Guest:And he kept on for about 10 years.
Marc:Oh my God.
Guest:I don't really get shit from other people.
Guest:Mostly what I get is people saying, thank you for standing up for him.
Guest:I don't, I've never like had a Trump supporter come over to me and say anything, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I'm usually with my children.
Guest:I'm not sure why, but it hasn't happened.
Guest:Sometimes online it does, but you know, you've got to really tune that out.
Marc:And you've never had to deal with him personally in New York or anything?
Guest:I met him once.
Guest:Once at his wedding, because when he was marrying Marla Maples, we had shared a mutual leading man.
Guest:She was in Will Rogers Follies and I did Greece.
Guest:And we had the same guy.
Guest:Well, he invited me to be his date.
Guest:So as Trump walked down the aisle to a woman he had left standing at the aisle three times,
Guest:He was shaking everyone's hand.
Guest:So that's the first time I met him.
Guest:He shook my hand.
Guest:And then I met him once at the celebrity, I mean, at the Survivor finale.
Guest:I was the host of the Survivor finale, and he was talking terms with Mark Burnett to see about doing The Apprentice.
Guest:And I blew Mark Burnett for a vast majority of the problems this nation has coming to terms with who he is in actuality.
Guest:I feel Mark Burnett is directly, personally responsible.
Marc:And have you talked to him about that?
Guest:No, but I've sure said it on a lot of interviews.
Marc:Really?
Marc:And he's a guy you worked with.
Guest:I know Mark Burnett.
Guest:I know his wife, Roma Downey.
Guest:And I know, you know, what he did.
Guest:I was a big supporter of his work.
Guest:I loved Survivor when it was first on.
Guest:And he was very kind and a great guy.
Guest:And I really liked him.
Guest:And then he did this apprentice.
Guest:And I kept saying to him, what the hell are you doing?
Guest:what are you putting up this guy as mr success he didn't even have a board room yeah before brunette and it was all plywood to begin with so you know he created this image that is nothing like who he is that is devoid of all facts about his essence and his character and he let that ride out on uh 10 years worth at least states and people still believe it they think of him as that
Marc:I'm surprised at how shallow and stupid and easily manipulated people are.
Marc:I don't guess I should be, but I am on a day-to-day basis.
Guest:It's heartbreaking.
Guest:It's totally Jim Jones.
Marc:It really is.
Guest:It really is.
Guest:Five seconds away from drinking the Kool-Aid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've gotten to the point, I don't know if you can do it, but I've got a limit.
Marc:I feel the bile come up and I realize, okay, I'm powerless over this, especially today.
Marc:There's nothing I can do right now.
Marc:I'm not going to let it collapse me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, then you've got a lot of internal strength to do that.
Guest:sometimes you don't even feel it like you know i remember i said to my kids once years ago like a decade ago my son who was 10 and i said you guys mommy kelly told me that i seem a little different or i seem a little sad do you guys notice anything you know and my little 10 year old said mom cymbalta because depression hurts the whole family right
Guest:That was the catch line from their little ad.
Guest:So I just keep an eye on it.
Guest:And when they say it, I really have to fight hard.
Guest:Like when they said, I'm worried you're getting sad.
Guest:You're sleeping so much.
Guest:I went to bed really early.
Guest:I got up really early.
Guest:I took a shower.
Guest:I went outside.
Guest:I have to fight hard to not let it suck me down.
Marc:When you look back at, you know, your career choice and doing stand up, do you how much of what you did early on, you know, in terms of struggling with your sexual identity, but also the depression?
Marc:I mean, how much of it was self-medicating?
Marc:You know, how much do you do you think like like when you think about musicals and doing stand up and all the stuff that you were kind of pounding away at?
Marc:Was it just keeping this shit at bay?
Guest:Yeah, in a way it was, I think.
Guest:You know, I always wanted to do Broadway shows.
Guest:There's nothing that gives me so much endorphins as seeing a musical, never mind being in a musical.
Guest:It's almost like being in a seminary or a church or, you know, like I did Fiddler on the Roof for about six months.
Guest:And to go sing those songs every night, it was like filled something in me that nothing else can fill.
Marc:Right.
Yeah.
Guest:And so I think it did a little bit, you know, I had tremendous anxiety.
Guest:There was abuse in my childhood.
Guest:So I had all that stored up, you know, physical abuse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Physical, sexual.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Family members.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Family member.
Guest:Just one.
Guest:Oh, who's no longer with us.
Guest:So, you know, which is a good thing.
Marc:That's terrible.
Marc:How was it after your mom died?
Guest:No, believe it or not, before.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:You know, when I was a little kid and I would go to the doctor and I would have urinary tract infections or yeast infections, and I was like six years old.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You know, and the doctor would say, do you touch yourself down there?
Guest:I was like, what does that even mean?
Guest:Like, you know, a six-year-old kid has no preface for that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:way to to put that all together you know but interestingly enough when my mother died that's when it sort of stopped i think huh you know but it's a trauma it was in his family and uh you know something that he and his siblings had to deal with as well and if you don't get treated sometimes you know there's more damaged people in your path it just keeps happening it just keeps tumbling through the generations
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Unless you make a real, real break the chain moment where you confront the people who did it or the person who did it and say, and this will be no more.
Marc:Were you able to do that?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:With a bunch of my siblings, we all went together and it was, uh,
Guest:a good intervention you know a good kind of we know this went down now you have to realize that when your mother dies when you're 10 years old and you have five brothers four brothers and sisters that's the crisis you think your whole life you grow up thinking that was the thing that my mother died and then you grow up and you come to realize well that wasn't the real thing right the real thing was this other thing that was going on that nobody was talking about and she you think she knew too
Guest:I think she knew my brothers and sisters don't always agree with me on that.
Guest:But I think she knew because when I got old enough, I was dating a guy when I was 28 for two years.
Guest:And he came back with me to the house I grew up in.
Guest:And I asked him to lay down in the bed.
Guest:The people let me in because they knew who I was.
Guest:So they he laid down in the bed next to me.
Guest:And I said, now get up and go to that room.
Guest:Get up and go to that room.
Guest:And I'm like, there's no way she didn't know.
Guest:We didn't live in a big mansion.
Guest:We lived in, you know, a regular low middle class income house.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there's a lot of that to rectify and to get with, you know, the second quality stuff wasn't really a big thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All of those other challenges that I had in my childhood.
Marc:Dealing with trauma.
Guest:Dealing with trauma.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And so when mass trauma happens like this, and I think, look at how many people are going to be in desperate need and in life altering pain.
Guest:What are we going to do?
Guest:How are we going to help them?
Guest:You know, like I couldn't get over seeing the images from 9-11, the images from Katrina.
Guest:I'm waiting for all the images from this.
Marc:You know, what's fucking daunting is that they're literally trying to cover it up as it happens.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And it's like, it's unimaginable.
Marc:And because there's so much information coming at us all the time, it's hard to get all the information.
Marc:I think Maddow's very good at sort of bringing a lot of this information to the forefront.
Marc:Now she's going into local newspapers to get stories on local nursing homes and stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I like that you're optimistic about November, and I think that I'm going to try to do that more.
Marc:To be optimistic?
Marc:A little bit.
Guest:I mean, you have to be for the election.
Guest:If you let yourself think that the country would have to suffer four more years through him, there's no reason to sort of... Stay here.
Guest:You know, think, to be here.
Guest:There's no reason to, like, you think that can't happen again.
Marc:The odd thing is I want to move to Ireland.
Marc:My plan...
Marc:Is he all going to set up a small, existentially dark Jewish stronghold in Ireland?
Guest:Listen, that will fit in Ireland.
Guest:I'm telling you right there.
Marc:Well, I think that is the sort of weird common thing that some Jews that I talk to about Ireland is there is a heaviness that we sort of identify with.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it's a different heaviness than in Jewish form.
Guest:I went to Israel a couple times a few years ago.
Marc:Why?
Why?
Guest:I had some friends who were going and I wanted to see what it was like.
Guest:And we got to go over to where the Palestinians are sort of locked in and you got to see kind of that.
Guest:And I was very interested in the Mideast and all of the peace talks, starting with Sadat when I was in college.
Guest:I thought he was such an amazing leader.
Guest:And, you know, I remember thinking Jimmy Carter was going to fix this all, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just have always been interested.
Guest:So I went to Israel expecting it to feel a lot different than it did.
Guest:But I think I find the heaviness and the trauma more in Ireland than I do in Israel.
Marc:Oh, for sure.
Marc:I think that my my experience with the kind of brooding darkness is an American Jew thing.
Marc:You know, I think it's more of an Eastern European thing.
Marc:But Israelis, I mean, it's almost like they have very little patience for whiny American Jews.
Marc:They're just sort of like, shut up.
Marc:Here's a gun.
Marc:Do your part.
Guest:You know, did you ever see that documentary to die in Jerusalem?
Marc:No.
Guest:That's a great one to watch.
Guest:It was about the first female suicide bomber.
Guest:And she went into a market and she only killed one other person her same age who looks so much like her that they couldn't tell the body parts apart.
Guest:The filmmaker got the mother of the Palestinian bomber and the mother of the one dead child.
Guest:together to talk but they couldn't they weren't allowed to come out of their space in palestin in palestine and the palestinians rather weren't allowed to come out so they had to do it like this at a time when like this wasn't really happening oh i gotta i gotta watch that yeah check that one out so when you like i'm trying to think so after the star searching that was it right then you became you you were launched right
Guest:I was launched, and then I did... Dana Carvey was auditioning for SNL at Igby's Comedy Club, and I was friends with all the waitresses, and I happened to be next.
Guest:So they held the checks while I did my set, and Brandon Tarnikoff came over to me with Lorne Michaels and Cher, talk about intimidating...
Guest:And we're going to put you on NBC.
Guest:And I went home and called everyone I knew in New York and told them I was going to be on Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And it turns out I was on Give Me a Break with Nell Carter.
Guest:But I was still happy to do it, you know, but come on.
Guest:I thought for sure this was my entry into SNL.
Marc:Did you want to be on SNL?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Every comic I think in the world did.
Marc:Did you have characters?
Guest:Yes, I had like my father's Irish probe and, you know, a bunch of accents and characters.
Guest:And I mean, I thought that was it right there.
Guest:This is how dreams are made.
Guest:You know, Lorne Michaels happens to be at your gig.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you did you have you had experiences with Lorne since then?
Guest:Yeah, I hosted it twice.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So then I got to be and then, you know, I put my picture.
Guest:Some gay guy put my picture on Steve Bannon during that whole thing.
Guest:And, you know, and then Lauren was like, are you saying you want to do this?
Guest:I'm like, if called, I will serve.
Guest:If you need me to do something, you can call me.
Marc:I remember when they were talking about that.
Guest:Yeah, I think he felt a little like, oh, I was trying to get the gig.
Guest:I wasn't.
Guest:I was just trying to, like, be in on the joke as opposed to having the joke used against you, you know?
Marc:Yeah, I think he would have been better.
Marc:I never liked what they did with Bannon with that death guy.
Marc:It was just a skeleton.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't like that either.
Guest:It didn't make sense to me.
Marc:No, it didn't make sense to me either, because he's such a tangible personality and so, you know, fundamentally, you know, mockable.
Marc:What so as I guess a big question for me is you do you do the movie, you do a League of Their Own, which was great.
Marc:You were great in it.
Marc:Popular movie.
Marc:In terms of the way your career kind of panned out, because you did everything.
Marc:I mean, you've done everything you wanted to do.
Right.
Marc:But was that the plan?
Marc:Did you like, you know, after you did some TV, I mean, did you want to just do movies and then that didn't happen?
Marc:So you adapted or how did it go for you?
Guest:I got League of Their Own.
Guest:I was one of the few women who could throw, really throw from third to first, you know, so I got that job and that just led to other jobs.
Guest:I like got the Flintstones before that was even out and then Sleepless in Seattle.
Guest:And, you know, there were a series of movies that I did.
Guest:I mean, my kids kind of look at my IMDB page one day and they're like, you were in all this, all this stuff.
Guest:I'm like, yes, you were, you know, and my son who's 20 came home two years ago and said,
Guest:I saw this movie, Mom, when you were a teenager and you were playing baseball and you talked like Rocky.
Guest:I was 30 and I was not a teenager and that's how I talked.
Guest:So I did all those things.
Guest:And then Grease was happening on Broadway.
Guest:And my agent said, I don't want you to do that, to take you out of the movie.
Guest:You're on a movie role.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, but I really want to do Broadway my whole life.
Guest:And this is one of the few roles that I can do.
Guest:And so I went and did that.
Guest:And that was what then allowed me to adopt because I had a stable job and I had saved all my money from the movies.
Guest:And I thought as soon as I had enough money to adopt, I would.
Guest:And it was right after I did Grease on Broadway.
Guest:And then there have been sporadic movies since then and guest spots.
Guest:I mean, I've had a career that...
Guest:I dreamed of as a kid and it kind of came true.
Marc:Well, what was the feeling like, you know, after being like probably heavily advised by representation to not do Broadway and then to actually do that part?
Marc:I mean, you did Rizzo, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, I mean, was it totally worth it where you're like, oh, fuck, this is the best thing I've ever done in my life?
Guest:Well, I signed up for a year, which was a lot.
Guest:And it's not a musical like Les Mis or Fiddler where you could leave every night uplifted by the score.
Guest:It was basically the premise of if you're a pretty girl, change yourself to be a slutty girl so you can get the cute boy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's the message of the play.
Guest:So it wasn't like I was there, you know, singing L'Chaim every night and feeling like the presence of God.
Guest:But I was, you know, easily bored and I was young and I, uh,
Guest:You know, I wasn't loving the show, but I will never forget the experience.
Guest:It's what show business always... Broadway is what show business was when I dreamed of show business.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Where you're friends with everyone and, you know, kind of the feeling we had in clubs where you knew the local guys and you'd all get it there at night and hang out and you get the cheese platter in the back.
Guest:You know, there was something very family-like.
Guest:Ish about that.
Guest:And the only other place I found that is on a Broadway musical in a Broadway cast.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So who were those guys when you were coming up on the island there?
Marc:Who were the guys that were hanging out backstage?
Guest:Oh, well, we had John Mulvaney.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I remember him.
Marc:for him he was a good looking guy yeah what happened to that guy i don't know i always look for him comic wise we had rich jenny who passed yeah that was shocking to me oh i remember that i i filled in his weekend the weekend he killed himself i didn't know he didn't do it and then they gave it to me he had he was having problems so he canceled it and i ended up doing it and then while i was there he he killed himself
Guest:No, horrible story.
Marc:Terrible.
Guest:He was the one everyone thought was going to take off after Seinfeld.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, he was a huge club back.
Marc:I remember him being on the cover of things like the club act of the year.
Marc:And he was so fast.
Marc:And then he hosted Caroline's Comedy Hour, which I think I did with him.
Marc:He was a pretty nice guy.
Guest:Yeah, he was a very nice guy.
Guest:He was really kind.
Guest:You know, there were some that were really, Kevin Nealon was really kind.
Guest:There are people I remember specifically as being really nice to the young female comics.
Guest:And then there were the ones that scared me, like Bill Hicks scared the hell out of me.
Marc:But he was he's just intense.
Guest:I mean, I don't think he was a black T-shirt kind of guy and the kind of guy that I wouldn't just go, hey, you want to go out and get a burger?
Guest:He was like, oh, no, Sam, Sam, the screamer.
Marc:Kenison.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Kenison scared the shit out of me.
Guest:I remember going down to Texas and thinking this is the worst place to have gigs.
Guest:Because they had such a tight community of comics there.
Guest:And there were a lot of them that were the bad boy comics, you know?
Marc:Oh, so you were at the workshop.
Marc:You were there before they left Texas.
Guest:Yes, I was there before they left.
Marc:And Hicks was like, he must have been like your age, though.
Marc:I mean, he was a kid.
Guest:He was a kid, too.
Guest:And so, you know, we got a young kid here to your age who's headlining.
Guest:And I would go over.
Guest:I was remember there was a club, I think was the comedy stop.
Guest:And the woman had lost her husband and two kids in a car accident.
Marc:I remember that place, but I don't know if I know that story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like a horrible story that she had her, her two children were killed in a car accident that she was driving.
Guest:And then she ended up adopting two more kids and opening another club.
Guest:I remember thinking that was the most unbelievable.
Guest:Like I wouldn't have the courage to do that again.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:So you, so, so that's interesting because Hicks, I mean, I would think that in retrospect, I mean, a lot of his material you would probably like, but at the time he was,
Guest:Now I do.
Guest:I listen to him now and I think, wow, it was really ahead of the curve.
Guest:The screaming and the kind of guy, guy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, I had dinner with him in San Francisco in the 90s and it was a lot.
Guest:Do you remember Vince Champ?
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he I was on the road with for so long and he ended up to be a serial rapist.
Marc:Yeah, he's in prison.
Marc:I mean, like gruesome shit, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hard to believe.
Marc:I think I did when when I came when I was opening in Albuquerque, where I grew up after I got, you know, fucked up on drugs in Los Angeles in the 80s.
Marc:i think i opened for him i remember meeting him and talking to him like nice guy kind of real kind of bland act dumb yes really nothing specific and kind of like a wholesome like preacher's kid almost right yeah yeah well this you know there was a whole thing about there was a whole trend of comics i think in the 80s that were just one step ahead of alimony payments you know tax running away from tax issues borderline criminals
Guest:Well, imagine what it was for me.
Guest:I was 18 years old and I was on the road with these guys in their 30s who I knew their wives.
Guest:I knew all their wives.
Guest:And then we'd go and they'd be picking up this girl and that girl and the comedy condo, or I would try to put the dresser against the door so that nobody could get in.
Marc:Oh, no.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was intense.
Guest:I have to tell you, when I think back now that somebody, my non-parent allowed me to do that is blows my mind.
Marc:That you were that afraid that like because they were having a party, they invited a bunch of weirdos over to the condo.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:All the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's terrible.
Guest:It's terrible.
Guest:And I would always try to get booked with other female comics.
Guest:But first of all, there were so few.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And second of all, they would never book.
Guest:If they ever booked it, it was like, you know, the freak show.
Guest:We've got an old female comedy lineup tonight.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who were the comics that you looked up to?
Guest:Carol Liefer was pretty much starting at the same time I was.
Guest:She was a little bit older than me.
Guest:Not a lot.
Guest:Adrian Talsh, I loved.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She died as well.
Marc:Are you friends with Bill?
Guest:Yes, friends with Bill, who I love.
Guest:He's a great guy.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:And did you know Vic?
Marc:Vic Henley?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's so sad.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I couldn't believe it.
Guest:At first, I thought it was COVID, but it wasn't.
Marc:Yeah, I think he had a heart problem or something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He was a sweet guy.
Guest:Very nice.
Guest:Great smile.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I think Vic was writing for Jeff Foxworthy for a while there.
Marc:I mean, I haven't seen Vic in a long time, but I spent a lot of time in New York and he was always around, but always just like a really decent guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you still do some stand up gigs here and there?
Marc:No.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:Every so often, if Judy Gold is working, she'll call me sometimes and say, come with me and I'll go with her and she'll give me some of her time.
Guest:I'm not like a regular.
Guest:I always feel bad because I remember what it was like when I was hanging out with...
Guest:I almost said Lou Diamond Phillips, but Lou DiMaggio at the comedy club and all these comics and it would walk Eddie Murphy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like, you know, like it was so horrible for you to wait all night and then have someone come in who obviously didn't need the time, wasn't helping.
Guest:So I feel a little bit guilty about making those stunted.
Guest:Hi, here I am amongst your open mic night.
Marc:Oh, the bumper.
Marc:You feel bad about bumping people.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:I remember that feeling where you're almost on.
Marc:It's 1130.
Guest:Yeah, there's four people there.
Marc:Do you ever miss having the talk show?
Guest:I do, but I don't know that I'd be able to do it now at 58.
Guest:I was in my 30s.
Guest:I was 34 years old when I did it.
Guest:I think that I had a different worldview than I do now.
Guest:I love doing that thing the first night of, you know, where we did for the Actors Fund.
Guest:We raised money in a one-night thing like this.
Guest:And if there was a way to do a show like this, where all that aspirational bullshit that we go through to be on talk shows and all the part that's pretense, I no longer would be able to do, I don't think.
Marc:The fake bullshit.
Guest:The fake bullshit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was on Letterman the day before or Kelly and Rip Kelly Ripa the day and have the same story.
Guest:And you feel bad for being the guy that has to tell the story for the fourth time.
Guest:I know what it's like to go do press for a movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you feel sorry for them.
Guest:But you also feel like I just heard this exact thing.
Marc:Yeah, it's that was hard.
Marc:So you did it every day.
Guest:Every day.
Marc:And it's like, I mean, I did radio a bit, but I never had to host a talk show.
Marc:And that is like such a, it's actually, it's a very difficult job because of that, because of the energy that goes into acting interested.
Guest:And pretending, you know, all the stories they're going to tell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And sometimes I would be like, I wouldn't look at the notes.
Guest:I wouldn't look at the questions.
Guest:I would just be like, let's see where this goes.
Guest:And then the producers are like, what?
Guest:You didn't ask for number question number two.
Guest:I know I was trying to make it real, you know?
Guest:I do know.
Marc:I do know.
Guest:You do know.
Guest:I find on this, you know, this format, you're much, you're much freer and you're much able, much more able to just kind of reach people on a human level.
Guest:And that's what I think we're going to need as a nation after this.
Guest:I think that's what people are going to want in their entertainment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think that right now I'm finding that we even like when like because I usually do this in person, which I like doing.
Marc:And I think that people, especially now and even before people who are isolated or feel alone with whatever their life is, when they can just try, you know, kind of pipe in some other people talking authentically about.
Marc:serious shit they they feel sort of represented less alone better totally and there's yeah definitely going to need a a lot of that but where did that where did that queen of nice thing come from well when i was starting on my tv show was right after somebody got killed on jenny jones
Guest:Right.
Guest:Jenny Jones had a guy on that was gay and he had a crush on a guy from his town.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:He went back to the town and the guy killed him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that, and then Geraldo getting punched in the face that was happening when I was selling my show for the beginning.
Guest:So when I came out and it wasn't like Geraldo or one of those shows, that's what people stuck me with the queen of nights, you know?
Guest:And I remember saying at the time, this is going to be the queen of fried rice, the queen of lights.
Guest:I'm never going to live this down.
Guest:And I was right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:First year that I was on TV, I went to Caesars.
Guest:I had a deal at Caesars.
Guest:So I went to finish out my last two dates and the crowd had totally changed.
Guest:It was all like senior citizens.
Guest:And there I was doing my nightclub act in Las Vegas as the headliner.
Guest:And it was full of headliner ish Las Vegas jokes.
Guest:material, and they're like, honey, can you believe this is that girl from TV?
Guest:It kind of ruined my stand-up ability.
Marc:Isn't that the worst?
Marc:Because I experienced some of that only in that you have these different parts of your career and your personality, but the stand-up is really...
Marc:That's what we built our lives on is a standup, right?
Marc:And, you know, there's a lot of, you know, you push envelope, you push the envelope, you push boundaries, you're filthy, whatever it is.
Marc:But that's, you know, that's who we are.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you got to be ashamed of that because of...
Marc:Again, you don't want to make people sad or upset, but they come in, they have expectations.
Marc:And then the part of you and your brain that that's beating the shit out of yourself all the time when they do that, you're like, I do stink.
Guest:It's fucking right.
Guest:If somebody says you suck, you're the first one to get on board and go, you're right.
Guest:I do.
Guest:You know, that's the comic way, I think.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If one person's not laughing, you know where they're sitting, what they're wearing, what they ordered to drink.
Right.
Marc:And you project the whole personality onto them.
Marc:You're like, of course, you're the only one that's right in this room.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I am terrible.
Guest:I suck.
Guest:I shouldn't even be here.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, it's like when you get comments, you know, the people that like will hit a nerve.
Marc:You'll just kind of scroll by all the good shit.
Marc:And then the one guy that says the one thing that kind of hits your own insecurity, you're like, see, I'm a monster.
Guest:I shouldn't be on Twitter.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I hate it.
Marc:I just went back on.
Marc:I was away from it for a while.
Marc:I just used it for promotion.
Marc:And now everyone with all this time, it's a fucking shit show.
Guest:It sure is.
Guest:And it's gotten to be so unhealthy that, you know, I'm doing a live Instagram thing like this every day for like 20 minutes.
Guest:How's that?
Guest:It's so easy.
Guest:You know, people seem to get a thrill out of me going, hi, Mindy.
Guest:I feel like I'm on romper room.
Guest:Hi, Mark.
Guest:You know, but just say hi to people.
Guest:They ask questions sometimes.
Guest:And everyone's like, thank you for doing this.
Guest:I'm like, I think I need it more than they do.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I've been doing it erratically like every few days.
Marc:And as a standup who keeps, you know, it's kind of nice to, you know, connect in a live immediate way.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:To go on stage and to know that person's eyes that they're going to be good.
Guest:You know, you can spot it in a minute.
Guest:Who's going to be somebody that you can play with and who isn't.
Marc:Right.
Guest:We miss that, you know, you miss that communication.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, look, it was great talking to you.
Guest:Yeah, it's nice to meet you finally.
Guest:I listen to you a lot.
Guest:I really enjoy your podcast and your garage.
Marc:Oh, thank you very much.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:And I've always enjoyed you.
Marc:And it surprised me that we hadn't met.
Marc:And maybe we'll meet in person someday.
Guest:That would be great.
Guest:I would love that.
Marc:All right, Rosie.
Marc:Take care of yourself.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thanks a lot, Mark.
Marc:So that was me and Rosie O'Donnell.
Marc:Again, that's the first time we did that.
Marc:And that's how it's going to be sometimes.
Marc:Probably more times than not.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:But she's in a limited series on HBO called I Know This Much Is True, premiering May 10th.
Marc:She's also raising money for the Actors Fund, helping people in the performing arts who are out of work or dealing with financial hardship because of the pandemic.
Marc:Go to actorsfund.org for more of that.
Marc:And now I'll play some guitar through a pedal.
Marc:And also, I just want to say for those who are keeping up, no word on the well-being of Gary.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'll talk to you later.
Marc:Guitar time.
Thank you.
Guest:.
.
Guest:Boomer lives.