Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Darrell Hammond

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Neal Brennan interviews Darrell Hammond (Cray, SNL) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 1:30 SNL & impressions 4:16 Emotionally Traumatic Life  6:50 Synesthesia  9:27 Voices & Impressions as Escape / Jim Carrey   15:43 Sponsor: BetterHelp 16:57 Sponsor: Mando 19:15 Abusive Mother 21:29 Cutting 25:03 Hallelujah Moment 29:09 Father Apologized on Death Bed 37:40 Sponsor: RocketMoney 39:18 Drinking  42:19 Transferrable Spirits 53:29 Monsters 57:41 Advice ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle Sponsor Blocks: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/blocks Sponsors: https://www.betterhelp.com/NEAL for 10% off your first month https://www.shopmando.com promo code NEAL for $5 off the Mando Starter Pack Https://www.RocketMoney.com/NEAL ---------------------------------------------------------- #podcast #comedy #mentalhealth #standup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, it's me, Neil Brennan. This is The Blast Podcast. We talk about things that make us feel like something's wrong with us. Oftentimes, doctors agree, and then we share them with each other and we heal the world. My guest today, I've known a little bit for a long time. That's a thing, that's a category that you can get to in life where you know people a long time but not well. And this will be the longest conversation we've ever had, but based on the three minutes we've spent together, it's going to be great. He was a comic in New York.

Here's my understanding of you. Comic in New York. I remember hearing you at Saturday Night Live, had never seen you, and then Jim Brewer told me how good your Phil Donahue was. Well, it has finally happened. And maybe you're Bill Clinton. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

I don't know what you auditioned with. But your Phil Donahue is so good. I do it in my life today. I didn't do it today, but a few days ago. Give me an example. I went, I mean, come on. I mean, come on. Like, I don't even know what I was talking about. It just, it's in my head.

You're Donahue saying, I mean, come on. I mean, come on. And then he was on Saturday Night Live and was quietly kind of dominant. You would be in the cold open a lot. You were claiming? 85 times. Yeah. So that's pretty good.

That's got to be a record, right? I might have the cold open record. I know Keenan has total season record, but i might have i might have the cold open record i know keenan has total season record but i might have 85 is up there i know what's right for this country and it is live from new york it's saturday night an incredible clinton kind of the first trump that sasquatch rosie o'donnell and a masterpiece of off rhythm rhythm meaning like the the apprentice like just the did the the pinball of it was incredible it's interesting how that evolved too because in the beginning i was doing the apprentice guy but then towards the end we started doing things like dominios and um

when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie say cheese burger pizza only from dominios and cuts yeah where he was just stationary and and just being and pontificating yeah and came up with with what i thought was the most pleasing resonant version of Trump, which is this guy, this imperious guy, who is madly in love with himself. Yeah, and doesn't need to make sense. Yeah, it doesn't need to make sense, because I think I did three or four different versions of them, and then towards the end, you know,

it was the breathy version that emerged. Debates are stupid. You should be paying me. And Wolf Blitzer looks like Papa Smurf. Once Trump got whole or the throng that adored him got really hold him and changed him. He made a different sound. Interesting. You know, when he got started getting in front of those, I mean, you've been in front of 10,000 people. Yeah. Okay. I only have one time.

I mean, it's not regular, but there's a few times. But in front of 10,000 people, I noticed within a few minutes that my stride was quicker and my gestures were larger and I was bigger. And just in a few minutes. I remember Rock telling me he had to do Bonnaroo, between the red hot chili peppers and metallica an hour and he's like you can't look down you can't say what else you can't say um you can't say jack shit you have to hit the gas and not let go this is a slack wire over niagara falls yes okay there's no room for no room for error this has to be a walk in the park yeah all right so you've had a emotionally uh very traumatic life and and it was and how do you know that i know that because i

watched the documentary okay i guess that's all that's how i know because i watched the documentary i went it when you when it was made when it came right what's the easiest way to say all the stuff because it is fairly it's pretty like and then and then and then and then well i think you know we just did cray with the name of the play about the book with chris ashley the tony award-winning director and we just performed it five times off broadway and amazon audible recorded it and that will be out soon and i think in that those 90 minutes it really boils it down, but even more so because the play is so much different than the book because the book, you know, we were doing it and Amazon, I mean, HarperCollins thought they had a book they wanted to go to press and they did it. who's a hundred years ahead of his time that i end up in his hospital and that's the cat that finally figures out what the hell is wrong back me into that like how how did that come to be because let's say somebody has no idea okay so i had been to 30 something shrinks and no one really

knew what was wrong with me and i'd been diagnosed um you're 35 at this point huh 35 yeah i'm in my i'm coming up on 40 something you've been you were on snl i know i i wasn't on snl until i was 39 okay that was when i mean i was carried out of nbc in a straitjacket literally literally the ambulance came and the straitjacket at me so you could see i was in some turmoil yeah and no one able to explain it to me what were you saying to therapists and what do they think it was listen and in those days and maybe to some extent today if you have unexplained moods with no corresponding incident. Nothing happened today, but you feel different in the afternoon.

You feel gloomy and depressed and all that. So that would be one of the polars. You're a bipolar. Right. Unipolar and all that. And then finally, I guess about 20 years ago, someone came up with this whole PTSD concept. And this doctor was able to get up inside my brain using

colors this is why he's such a genius he um i have synesthesia meaning i color code things before i can actually i've heard you talk about impressions and voices that way all the voices So Donald Trump is? He was, I call him Mauve. Sure. And Al Gore? Brown. Okay. So this doctor comes in one day and he's like, what color was Porky the Pig?

I'm like, yellow. Bugs Bunny, aqua. Geraldo Rivera, ink blue with little streaks of orange bill clinton orange synesthesia wasn't a well-known thing either no by the way like now it kind of is but yeah and so the play is really that's a large part of the play is is me this doctor coming in and going and finding out what's wrong with me based on the way I color coded things? We've been through all these characters and we've been all through the dogs and they have all these colors, but none of them are colored red. What's up with that?

Where was the red where you grew up? There had to be red. And once I told him about this hibiscus bush he figured the whole thing out because it had been a series of i don't know if you know what like what your understanding of a flashback is my understanding is it becomes keen in your mind's eye and you feel it yeah but i'm not like looking at it right i'm not hallucinating and all that you're experiencing it in a wide like in a yeah so i would have these ones that involved you know red colors and um and and thumping sounds like that and what this guy was able to figure out was that was a hibiscus bush thumping against a

window i mean i don't want to give the whole plot away well yeah but i'm without giving the plot of it away is there uh was it the is was it an abuse situation yeah right and that was maybe your pov or something yeah and it was and it was a really dicey situation because when it was going on you know like my father's at work and the only one there is our, I think the only person that was giving me any love at all was our housekeeper, Mertes. And Mertes had to stop it from happening. And, you know, it got dicey in there. It got dicey, man. And so I started color-coding things. I was talking like Porky Pig when I was seven,

you know, eight years old. Yeah. A friend of mine, I don't know if you remember Randy Pearlstein, but he used to say, anyone who does voices is trying to escape what they are. And I always think about that when someone does a lot of impressions.

And the funny thing is, you know, my, one of my doctors said it's mother nature's brilliant response to trauma. Yeah. That's what your, impressions. That's what your brain did with it. Yeah. and there's the colors and there's the impressions and all but sure yeah it seems like

jim carrey was doing the same he just wanted like let me not be this skinny poor kid and let me be be Clint Eastwood or... Clint Eastwood. This ad was expressly recorded to create a sense of simplicity. Just a few simple sounds. No complexity. Hmm. Like Neutral.

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Trap, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Only in theaters August 2nd. James Dean. Sure. And like desperately. And you can feel it. I never felt your desperation. It seemed like you could just get in the pocket on these things.

They weren't intense. They weren't hard to watch. You know what I mean? Some of Jim's are like intense jim on the tonight show it's just like god i like i shouldn't be seeing this james dean a person can tort themselves to try to get away from how it feels to be them most of the time if you've got nothing to do and you're waiting for your uber to show up just do do a three minute um clip of best of jim carrey holy moly yes the guy is so gifted good god yeah and he was out there doing his own

thing in some other stratum too it's almost like part of his thing where those weird existential paintings were boy you're like you're saying he is bringing the heat i don't know what is like sort of inspirations now but my it looked like based on what you're saying that it was truly like an escape yeah Yeah, and then what about the idea that the performer goes through years of therapy and the therapy is very successful and he's kind of just starting to have some pretty good days once in a while,

like it's a place that I'm in. And after a while, you're like, I don't know if I want to do that anymore. I just did a show with Jay Moore in Vegas. I did 50 impressions, like too many no but at the same time i'm like this is a little i don't know well yeah yes if you're you're free to go i mean that i'm i'm getting to the point where i'm like i was talking to somebody about this the other day where we were just kind of like this is great but this you know i was doing it to feel better oh hell yeah and i it did make me feel better yeah and you know what else made me

feel better other stuff you know what i mean so that now i feel better and i'm not saying like and this is our retirement announcement i'm just saying if i don't if i'm if i'm doing something to be happy and then i can do it without it i'm not i probably not going to keep doing it right you're not gonna you're not gonna you know i used to tell people you want to be successful on on a weekly basis on snl you got to be prepared to lose a thumb yeah i mean bro you're in a fight yeah by the way you might fight lose a thumb and you won do you know what i mean like you should see what happened to whomever you fought they lost an arm and you're you got in the cold opener you got your sketch in the first half hour whatever yeah and

that's that's you know that's sort of what is the motor on that place but for better or worse well well the motor is the end of the year there are people that are going to show up and they're going to judge you on what you did that year and they don't care that you got into a slump because the the scaffolding you need for your favorite character just couldn't get in from Brooklyn. Yeah. Or because Helen Hunt wanted to sing a Christmas carol. They don't care. Yeah.

You ain't in the show. You came to gamble. You came to pan for gold here. Binary. Yeah. Good or not. Binary. Wow.

Yeah. You were either on the show and did great you either crushed it or you weren't helpful it's a show about hitting home runs yeah it's also a talent it's a sketch contest it's a weekly sketch contest i mean when i think about you know over the years i i didn't feel like i was in the show as much and someone said you know it doesn't matter how many times you're in the show just the ball has to go over the fence well because that's why i said you were like a quiet you were it's like i i bet lauren understood you know what i mean i bet lauren was like

this guy is an earner this guy's gonna earn me nine laughs in the first six minutes of my television show. He wants a 5% bump. Give him 6%. Why is he so good under pressure? Yeah. He used to say stuff like that. About you. Yes.

And did you feel the pressure? or was your life so much it was your life more pressure than doing the doing a color impression i don't want to say this is really bad i think you probably hit the nail on the head i've been in pressurized situations where you have to behave as if it's not happening yeah if you're going to get out of this, you can't offend the people that are doing it to you. So when you have to adopt, you have to lock in to pull this off. That's a skill you learn over the years. Does that make sense to you? I'm living it.

Yeah. I mean, I think doing stand-up is, you know, my buddy Bijan says, like, you're getting into a car accident every night and we just train ourselves to either we like kind of structure a helmet around our heads or we make it seem like it's or we just we get our it's we're astronauts and we just get used to this. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp Therapy. I talk about it all the time in life. Those of you who speak to me in life know that I talk about therapy a lot. And I believe in it. Therapy can help you take stock of your progress and set achievable goals for the next six months.

I'm looking at improving my inner monologue, guys. It's something I've gotten way better at in the next six months. I'm looking at improving my inner monologue, guys. That's something I've gotten way better at in the last six months to a year. Therapy's helped me with that. Therapy's helpful with boundaries. Huge with boundaries. It makes you set goals for yourself, and then you can sort of check in and see how they're going with your therapist. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your therapist. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists to any time for no additional charge. Take a moment. Visit betterhelp.com slash N-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot C-O-M slash N-E-A-L. Go to betterhelp.com slash neal and make your whole thing better. I would have said I love you, but I've drawn a boundary. See? Works. You ever lift a little too hard or just forget to apply your daily deodorant and get hit by a truckload of BO from all directions and you go, who is that? And there's no one in the room. Does that three in one shampoo leave you needing a second shower just a few hours after the first? From the founders

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Use code NEAL at shopmando.com. That's S-H-O-P-M-A-n-d-o.com and the code is neil it's time to smell better naked your partner will thank you they're gonna say oh mando all right so beyond the the the play and all that stuff like what it seems like it's severe trauma uh and didn't really and this is in the 70s and no one really talked about stuff like that there was like what is now a gigantic social movement in terms of mental health would used to be one two movies per year about any sort of emotional disturbance you must have felt just like totally un alone picture this okay the crime is not as bad as being expected not to talk about it and living with that because the perpetrator between a contract the basic perp and victim is i'll do worse to you if you talk about this right you know

that headset a monster that walks in and gets angry at you because you yelp when he kicks you you you don't want to take it that's the thing i've i've learned i've read so much about these guys and and gals yeah can i say that it was your mother do you mind if i say that well you can say that yeah um but man not the proverbial mother joke it was literally his mother uh and yes and that's uh i'm gonna go on the record as saying that's maybe the most sacred contract on earth between a mother and a child yeah and was violated soon and regularly. They said I would have been the next son of Sam if it wasn't for Murtis or Hellskeeper. She was just empathetic?

She loved me. No, man, took me for walks, sat in the lap. She was doing mom stuff because the other one was off in her own world. Were there points where you tried to mention it and realized how different things were? That's what the cutting was all about. That's a smoke signal. That's a message in a bottle.

My understanding of cutting is, again, you're trying to get away from the feeling of being you. Well, it creates a crisis that's more manageable than the one that's going on in your head so yes you you are getting away from being you another reason is just to billboard it like some adult would go you have seven cuss on your forearm how old are you at this point 17 years old and did you know it was a thing you could you know what i mean now you did. Or even why I was doing it. You just found yourself doing it. And it was a great release. You know, it created a crisis that was more manageable than the one going on in my head.

That was easy to fix. Because, you know, none of these cuts are, that's not a death march. This is just like, let me release this valve yeah and let this pressure come out but the other part of it is me wanting someone in my world to say hey dude what is wrong with you anyone anyone and mertis wouldn't ask you she She would just care for you. Yes. It was just like she knew what was wrong, but what was she going to do? Right. There was a day when there was the climax of the play,

and what we find out in the play, and what this doctor gets me to remember in real life, is a particular incident involving a knife in the bushes, the hibiscus bush and all of that so murders had to be the one that stopped it from happening probably and risking her job and much more i mean that that was back in it that was back in a day where you could disappear. You know, we heard stories of guys who were gay that were dragged on the back of a wagon, tortured. You know, that element was there. And I'm not sure it's the only place in the world it existed, but maybe it is. But stuff could happen.

This is just Florida, right? Yeah. But, I mean, there was a football coach fired because he'd won two state championships, and he got fired because someone saw him holding hands with a dude at the day's end. Yeah. Yeah. At the days in. Yeah.

Things used to be real homophobic and real racist and real disorganized and real – probably the same amount of corrupt. And there were certain parts of the population that could be abused physically. You know, child abuse wasn't illegal until 1965. Yeah. Spousal – I mean, spousal rape wasn't illegal till 79 i believe yeah so you're probably you were alive and so you know what i mean like you were in the window of legal child abuse so it was like legal and then it's not like and then once it became illegal it was they stopped and then they cleaned their their more challenges yeah they're like oh no we didn't know well now that it's illegal we never would um did you did so did you ever besides the

billboards that you were putting on your arm and the what did you did anyone ever say anything so finally i was in the er and at uh for cutting yes for cutting at cornell hospital and this do they think it was suicide or they just thought he... No one thought it was suicide or they would have not let me leave. Got it. And this doctor brings me this hallelujah chorus moment, which is you're this way because of something that happened to you. We just have to find out what that is.

And you're how old? 39, 40. So you're cutting. Is that when you got taken when in the straight jacket i don't know there's like a four or five year period there where things were pretty rocky but the interesting feature was about that to me was i was still i was delivering the these performances yeah almost as if being out there you know like, like the silver surfer on my board was sort of transporting me in a way that, you know, really gave me relief. And was it, to use the, you know, disassociation thing, is that what, like, Lauren hired you 20 weeks a year to disassociate? Someone suggested it to me.

Not even in a bad way, but I'm just, you know, not like... Someone suggested it was that that's what was going on. But from what I know of disassociation in times that I have disassociated, being able to handle a script in front of 16 million people with five camera angles and cords and cables all over the place and a rod standing there you know or paul mccartney being able to handle all of that i doubt it you could do that in a dissociative state and and okay but i yes but maybe the pressure like we said allowed you to focus on something yeah something that required like i hyper focus when you're at

cornell and they say this is because of something that happened to you is your first do you know what it is do you go let me throw this at you and see if it means anything your soul knows before your brain will accept it yeah you know she's cheating you know they're lying i knew something was terribly wrong that it involved my family i knew it but how do you go up against that how the hell do you go up against that? That's against nature. You know, the thought that a parent could withdraw their love from you, I mean, that's a gun to your head, and you really have to avoid it. So, you know, it was a tricky thing where suddenly, you know, there was all these small cuts and then this one giant cut and then i got shipped up to meet this doctor who comes in and figures out the whole thing how the whole thing

went down and that's pure luck no he's not like he knew what he was looking for no no uh that he was that he was the hospital and yeah that you were a patient hospital upstate new york that a lot of famous people have been to i mean this cat's got a brain on him that's that's weird so people seek this guy out yeah yeah what's his name do you say cotby i call him dr k in the play because everyone called him dr peniel's on war cotby all right well here's a great what do you think of mother's day do you know what i mean what do you think of like oh mom or like you know, like the iconography of maternity and motherhood? Yeah. Nice job, ma.

Hey, ma, look. Yeah. I try to joke about it. That's just one of those things I'm not going to get, you know, have. you know have i live you know in west hollywood which has got all these great dog parks and you see lots of nannies with children and moms with children and kids being looked after and taken care of and it's i'm like i don't know yeah bounces right off it's nothing to me yeah except i'm fascinated by maybe the nannies yeah you know what i mean like that you that you've been a part of that and what about your do you feel or did you, or I don't know where you are day to day, but like, what about your dad? Well, my father apologized on his deathbed. He had put his war medals on his chest, right?

So on his, literally. Literally all his war medals were on his deathbed. So he said, get me my medals. Well, I was in New York about to do a show with Barack Obama, a cold open. Who? He meddled? Go ahead. Yeah, that's right.

And the nurse called and said, your father doesn't have much time. And I said, all right, I'll be on a plane in the morning. I said, I'll find a way to get a plane there right now tonight. So it was the Obama Halloween one? Yeah. Well, who is that under there? So my father wants me to stay because he wants to see me perform with someone who might be an American president one day. So he goes off his morphine.

The next morning, me and Eddie, who's a big part of the book, a cop, fly down to see my father, and he has his war medals on his chest, and he tells what he won them all for and says that he realizes he had been a good soldier, but a terrible father. And that his sin on earth was that he had let his anger be more important to him than his children. Wow, did that do a lot to me, for me. And I love you. Like, just that.

You felt like, okay, i didn't imagine it i know what i felt like you know i had like i have a dad and not and like yes thank you for acknowledging what yeah what the reality of my life was crazy what just a little a little humility from because these you know parents are like gods you know just a little humility i was wrong yeah i let my anger be more important to me than my children and i'm i'm here i am now they're about to give me a shot and i won't be here anymore and i'm sorry and i'm sorry and i love you i'm like dude i'll give you the shot myself what was it what was he what was his anger he was in world war ii and the korean war but it was it was mostly about world war ii and the things that he saw as a soldier in world war ii is it what we now called trauma yeah and back then it was just like i

didn't like that i think they call it battle fatigue yeah but but this is a guy that wakes up almost every night and he's he's thinking about out of hitler that's what he's thinking about that's what he doesn't stop thinking about really the stuff he saw Nazis do didn't leave him. Yeah. And towards the end of his life, he was afraid to go to church. He felt that he'd killed people. And what does this mean? And this cop, Eddie, became friends with him,

finally got him to go to church. He was like, dude, these are Nazis. Yeah. They make furniture out of people, man. Yeah. Okay? And they were getting ready to do it to all of us. Yeah.

No, I think about that sometimes. I think about, like, if there was a, I think about, like, that mentality. Watch a World War II documentary, and you think about that mentality. And I would have been fucking furious at Hitler. It's such an obvious thing to say. Like if you're, it's like, why are you putting all of us in this situation?

Yeah. Because one or two things are going to happen when you go to war. You're going to turn and run or you're going to get really mad at Hitler. It sounds like it sounds stupid but like yeah one of those two things happen yeah and it's going to make hitler's going to make you do awful shit yeah even if you're an american gi yeah because you have to to stop him yes stuff that's going to come into your home in melbourne florida years later yeah when you're waking up in the night it was with a scream would he hitler is still there oh yeah hitler's still

there was it a lot was it like ah what what was the 10 yeah it was like it was like a five seconds and sometimes falsetto and sometimes strident so you get that that's got to make you feel a lot better and have genuine empathy yeah did you have him did what was it like before that was it just kind of like i don't know what happened no connection got it no real connection what did what were his medals for um whatever they give medals for it weren't in war so it wasn't like was it like i saved a guy at guadalcanal i did was it specific i think there were ones for um valor meaning there are deaths involved and then is your mother still alive at this point no she uh she died shortly before he did same hospital and same hospice in Palm Bay, Florida. And what was that one like?

That was like, I said something like, nobody in this room knows who you are. Own each step with Peloton. From their pop runs to walk and talks, you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50, Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks, and hikes led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner. Peloton All Access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running.

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Back out of here. Going to be a lot easier to move on with your life than if you dove in here and turned this into World War III in front of all her friends. I mean, it will rip you to pieces, and it won't mean nothing to her. So they did this funny thing. My friend Eddie's a cop from the Bronx, and he became in charge of security for Jeff Immel at NBC. I mean, he's really had, I thought, a great, considered an illustrious career. NBC. I mean, he's really had, I thought, a great, considered an illustrious career. But the people at the hospice encourage you to stay for us. For instance, sometimes they won't pass if there are loved ones in the room. So we had to leave the room. And then my father would

pass. So he passed and we walked in. he said they said uh um nobody goes to the other side unescorted you know and i remember saying that to eddie it's like eddie i noticed she didn't go into my mom's room when she died he goes yeah because i knew she was going to get escorted but i figured it was the other guy i'm like you really believe that he's like oh yeah oh yeah the devil what my father called a verifiable evil and that is you know your past disgruntled your past troubled you know now this is fun for you. Just being sadistic. Being a joyously cruel person. Yeah, it's joyous.

It's masturbatory. It's sexual joy. I only met one person like that. And you can't tell in the beginning. They're just like other people. And look, I know in my life i've been selfish and i've been dishonest and i've been mean and i've been lots of stuff that i'm ashamed of that i have actual shame for but i ain't never sent no one up to bilk their pension fund i haven't done that stuff you know so this i'm i'm the troubled one you know yeah not the cat

that's gone way from what i understand huh you you'll cut yourself you're gonna cut yourself a hundred times before you cut somebody else won't ever cut anyone else yeah because it's not i'm not designed like that i'm designed to have oh i don't know that's deep i don't have to think about that go no i don't know that's deep what are you designed for that whole thing was not about killing anyone that was about providing relief for me wasn't even about killing me it's cutting cutting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were, it was just relief. Val, like you said. Yeah.

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so crazy if i'd been alive then is like motherfucker i get 60 70 80 years on this planet and i have to spend it doing this because you're because you're such a piece of shit, it affects my life. My whole family tree. Yeah, and then in your case, it's your whole family tree. But I think about the abuse you went through, and it's still affecting you yeah you yeah yeah you're gonna walk with a limp you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna pay homage to the that event the rest of your life do you know what i mean i know with the cognitive therapy with the yoga with the epsom salt baths with the bio neuroback, with the two shrinks a week.

You're going to pay for that. It's like they did the crime and you're going to do the time. Like you got to go through that period. You're like, I can't have that chip on my shoulder. Of the bitterness that I have to do all this? Well, yeah, because I would never stop drinking. Oh, okay. And you feel like that's, who knows,

no one knows exactly what, there's no one reason why people drink, but you think, you drank through your 20s and 30s, right? And then did you stop in your 40s or no? Sometimes, there were three years, four years, five years, two years, you know, in different spurts.

But I loved that whiskey, boy. Huh? What's not to like? If you're in the state you're in. If you can do it. It's a ticket out of the state. Yeah. But then you get into the like with me i contracted diabetes how type 2 yeah living in new orleans and eating sugar salt flour and

alcohol lots and lots of it every single day do that for a number of years you'll be you'll have type 2 diabetes and did you have the you got a little blind and then you like, did you have the pre-diabetic thing or you just went straight to it? No, I, I, I, um, have always been good about getting checkups in my life. And so I, I got, I, I moved out of new Orleans because, um, you know, I just want to party there. I think spirits are transferable, and I can slip into that really easily. I love that city, but I tend to party when I'm down there. Say more about spirits are transferable. Spirits are transferable.

Like if you're at a game and you're all on the same – you're rooting for the same team. Everyone gets fired up and you cheer. If for a team you don't even know what the sport, what the rules are. Yeah, whoever it is you're hanging out with, you're going to catch what they have. Yeah. You literally are having a spiritual experience. You can go to the game feeling so-so and leave the game feeling jazzed up.

Yeah. Something spiritual happened. A contagion. Yeah. And you would get like that. You'd wake up in New Orleans. You'd have beads on. Oh, I didn't do the beads.

But you would wake up. You move there. Move there thinking what? I didn't. I don't know. I just was so attracted to it. That's a good question. What are you doing this for?

I mean, at this time, SNL was was over i was going through a messy divorce and like um there were events that were there were things going down that were really really hard to live with you know there was a place where sorrow was you know anointed that's a funny way to put it so you so 39 40 41 41, you and this doctor get to it. 50. 50. So you go to Cornell. Did you work with them for 10 years? No.

I went to Cornell, and then I worked with a couple of really competent doctors who were coaching me on the idea that you feel the way you think, getting me into cognitive therapy and doing all those kinds of things. But the cutting would still happen once in a while it wasn't until this doctor demonstrated in this psychodrama which is in the play um where the what that red was all about once you knew what the red was about though your problems aren't then you have to go to go through the business of forgiving the person. Tell me about that. Well, it's when you realize that they became who they are by going through what they put you through.

Right. They had suffered horribly in their life. You know? You mean she didn't invent child abuse well i i would have thought so no you know this doctor had me into this thing so it's mental illness not an airborne virus monster real monsters hide in the light they work in the dark but they are hiding in the light right next to you monsters don't make themselves in order to be a monster you first have to be a victim that was the the process for me to to stop hating on her deathbed do you see that as

an act of grace for her or yourself or both? I got nothing there. I got nothing. I was looking for a spiritual, you know, when you say a prayer over the person, some sort of resolve, some sort of comfort, some sort of sense of a God. I didn't get that there i got that i got that though when my father passed

and i don't know if you've been through this when you go in a room that someone just passed they were there and now they're not yeah and it seems like it seemed like as much a miracle to me as birth just like whoa and they're these' profound belief that no one goes to the other side unescorted. And I started reading about Einstein and his ideas about what God was. And he had this whole thing where he said, you know, anyone that hangs nine planets in the air is not a human. Not you speak oceans into existence.

Yeah. You know, it's not even, it's like, it's just don't even bother. That's what I, that's what I've come to. Don't even worry.

It's not for you. It's like some adults are talking shit well he was looking there's an article in smithsonian magazine about him sitting in a field looking at a little girl sitting next to a stationary train it occurs to him that the same force of gravity is keeping the little girl on the ground as is keeping the train on the ground at exactly the same time but applying vastly different amounts of force. How does gravity know the difference? Does gravity have perception?

Then he's like, whoop. Yeah. Yep, I'm Einstein. I'm checking out. Yeah. Too big for me. Didn't take long. Yeah.

Yeah, but I think, yeah, it's like just it's none of our business. It's not something's happening. We don't know what. Just accept it. But there are moments where you can not even understand them, but there are more that are more obvious. Like this person was a living thing with needs and thoughts and a heat signature and a vibration that you could detect and now all of that is gone so the dad was a lot of grace and with the mom stuff you just go i don't think it's gonna happen or did did it get better with time i just don't hate you anymore

i understand why you're the way you are i got. You suffered greatly and I feel sympathy for you. Nothing frees you from your perp any faster than a little sympathy for the devil if you can somehow muster that up. And this doctor coached that into me. Empathy. Or it's sympathy. Like to become that, what do you think happened to her?

Yeah, I mean, I've come to a thing with with parents in general which is like did they do better than their parents you want it you want to give any parent an a for effort but sometimes it's hard no i had a joke like you know they it's the generation of parents who were like we did our best i was like so you were drunk hitting your kids being like this is me at my best like it's not it you could do you could have done better yeah um check me out yeah look at me yeah um and and the feeling of the limp you don't feel how do you deal with that in, I guess, everyday life? Well, I go to 12-step meetings. I live a life of consultation, meaning I really discuss the heavy things that are going on in my life with people around me who I believe care about me.

And that really helps a lot. And that really helps a lot. The cognitive therapy helps a lot. Cognitive therapy, just explain. Cognitive therapy is you feel the way you think. It's not what happens to you. It's what you tell yourself about what happens to you. And it's about reframing. It's about reframing and identifying distortions in your thinking process.

Yeah. Which, you know, you're thinking stuff you couldn't possibly sell to a jury, you know? Yeah, it's science fiction. Yeah, it's fiction. So I do that stuff. What do you do? I do all of it. I've done CBT.

I've done talk therapy. I've done, I mean, the most effective things I've done, I wouldn't recommend is ayahuasca and DMT, which obviously would break your sobriety. But yeah, and those were transformative, but they're pretty, you know, it's pretty dicey. I mean, I've had really responsible doctors say do you want to try ketamine i did ketamine two months ago i did ketamine in a way that didn't work for me

and then i did it uh once i did the ayahuasca and the dmt it kind of opened up my but that that was a positive experience for you ketamine was the first time i did it was not the ayahuasca and the dmt changed me yeah changed my the way abuse changed me the way trauma changed you the way abuse changed it unchanged it which is unincredible i really hear a lot of that in England. I hear in England that people are using that for depression. Yeah, absolutely. Because there's no other therapy that's worked. Yeah, treatment-resistant depression is the term.

And also, I don't see how that's a loss of sobriety necessarily because the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. I mean, I'm all, sorry sorry but i'm all for it if you can find a way to put those demons to rest yeah do it i yeah that's what that's what it did for me and it's but it's you know i've seen people get a little it's it's it's it's a little dicey yeah there's the notion that in order to save the patient's life, you might actually have to risk it. Yeah, and that's the, you know, I almost did it in a,

I was never suicidal, and so it was almost, you know, recreationally, but it was somewhere between recreationally and uh what medically needed you know what i mean yes um i do so yeah so i don't know so that's the stuff i've done but i'm i'm interested in in the idea of that the limp you talked about and and tell me why is that interesting because bill burr was on here and he said something interesting that i'm positive resonate with you he said i think about the way i grew up and i think how was i what was i supposed to be like relative to who i became you know what i mean if i grew up in a peaceful environment a loving peaceful peaceful environment, who would that guy be?

Right. And then you look at who you became, you look at who he became as a viewer, thumbs up. But the assumption that it's not even the assumption that it's easy, but I know it's not easy. And it's hard not to ruminate over who was i supposed to be because i know i spent time doing that yeah i i told someone this yesterday and i was having a really hard time and wasn't too proud of some of the stuff you'd been doing and i said you you have to consider the possibility that you're doing exactly as you were designed to do. That you grew up like every other human being in the history of the species modeling behavior you saw around you.

And you didn't realize it was just the way you were going to do stuff until it happened. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're not breaking the law or severely breaking the law or really hurting harming people there are ways you know like i just i'm writing this second book about someone i met once about what a monster is oh that's what i'm when you said i met one person they want to inflict as much pain as possible without actually going to jail and there's lots of ways to do it the main ways with lies get that person to believe a series of lies

especially if they're love starved and you think it's they know what they're doing and they're doing it intentionally and it's we're talking about sociopaths basically or severe narcissists but yeah and then you start talking about bifurcated personalities right and that's where the whole area gets a little murky for me like this one doesn't know what this one is doing you know all that stuff yeah it could be it can be it's a little convenient because if you look at bundy bundy was this guy that everybody loved, and then he had heads in his trunk. It's bifurcated personality, I guess. And that's your conclusion with this person is like they enjoyed.

It was sexually satisfying, that level, the lies my conclusion because this person told me this um when we broke up um this kept happening so she could tell the other person imagine you start going out with someone and you believe there's someone that they're not even close You start going out with someone and you believe they're someone that they're not even close. Not even close. They've got you fooled. There's a performance art involved in it. And you start getting invested.

And they know how to say things to you and read you and say those things and open up your mind. As the character, basically. Yes. And then you find out. Then one day they have you tell your wife about them. And the wife divorces you and the kids hate you. And then you find out, then one day they have you tell your wife about them, and the wife divorces you, and the kids hate you, and then you disappear. And then you come back, and you let that person know, oh yeah, by the way, I'm a prostitute. And oh, and by the way, I've slept with your brother. One person through deception has walked into a world and destroyed it. no way to inhabit this any this place anymore yeah you will be in

recovery or walking with a limp as we're talking about for the rest of your life this person said i did it so i could break the news to the person so i could like do like oh by the way it's a lie do they want the other person to find out or they want to tell they want them to find out it's a lie do they want the other person to find out or they want to tell they want them to find out what feeling are they trying to get in the person what are they trying to inspire in the person what's the feeling they want to erase them they want to hurt them so bad they can't go on like they can't live in that world anymore the mom took all the money and everyone in the family tree hates you. Right. And the kids hate you and are reviled by you. Pure destruction. And your friends are slightly embarrassed for you at work and the whole, your whole world is about someone who came in and then has slept with your

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Adventure awaits in Ottawa. From O to Ah. Plan your Ottawa adventure at ottawatourism.ca. How do you recover from that? And do you feel like you've attracted people like that? I've attracted some really that i've i've retracted some really troubled types and i've been a troubled type yeah um but i i've never no one like that before brother you can't tell yeah even even in retrospect you're like this

there was no way there was no way you can. I mean, someone that could say those things and figure out a person, there was no way they could know. In other words, like my shrink said to me, you can prepare for the attack of a grizzly bear for years and still not get it right. You can't prepare. There is no prepare for something like this. There's just no way to do it.

I do training with grizzly bears maybe you know what i'm talking about of course yes like when that big bear comes lumbering over that hill at 50 miles an hour you could really mess this up yep all right here's the here's here's my question for you not what that's the thing of like what would what advice would you give yourself not i i have a more general version what would what advice would you give yourself not i i have a more general version of that what advice would you give to someone who's about to be a human being don't what are you crazy oh i don't know that that's really deep no but you know what i mean like because i'm curious as to like what what are the lessons what are what what what have you you know there's probably a thing in in a what's

the spiritual lesson of any of this well i've seen enough cool things that it's worth hanging around for yeah i've had enough good days that it's worth hanging around for. When you say you've seen cool things, what do you think of? I think of a guy I know who was in a lot of trouble recently. And I think of the five or six dudes which rallied to his aid free of charge. And I thought that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen or been a part of. And, you know, stuff like that is a fable to me. That's mythological

stuff. Human generosity? Yeah, you know, wanting nothing in return. Just let's go help this guy and impart this message in him. Whatever the hell you did, you got about five or six people here

that really want you to win. There's a way, or stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know what I'd say to someone about the movie. What would you say? Try to remain hopeful. I would say what this guard told me when I was in jail in the Caribbean

and I was supposed to be on trial the next morning, when he came in and said, you know, it's about a 50-50 chance. I don't know how to tell you, but you could get an honest judge and you're in a lot of trouble. You could get someone that wants something else. And you got a way out. So it could work out. I hate to say that's the best I can tell you.

It's worked out for some. Yeah. And it some. Yeah. And it could. Yeah. I can't guarantee another. Yeah. But I guess even some. You think it's more than some?

I guess workouts abroad is a vague. What is it? You said it could work out. It could. Right. Do you think for most people life works out? I mean, again, it's like what's the category? But it working out is, it can work out in pockets.

Yeah. You know? And when it doesn't, just hold on until the next work. It's stormy weather. Yeah. Until the next. Batten down It's stormy weather. Yeah, until the next. Batten down the hatches and wait. Yeah.

I don't know how many times my shrink has said to me, did you ever see the show Stranger Things? Yeah. So they have the upside down, where the exact same situation that they've been loving and being healthful in has become horrifying same thing so i would have these days like that where i would be in the pits of despair and gloom and my doctor would go it's temporary you're on the upside down we know it lasts a few hours

you call your friends you connect with the people. You rest. And you distract yourself. Yeah. Because some days you're just going to want no new questions, no new answers. I don't feel so good. Just kind of a physical sensation. Synapses firing chemicals, shitty chemicals, and just try to ignore it and it's un it's hard to believe but it will pass sometimes it seems impossible that it's going to pass it's like the i was saying to somebody it's like the drug thing where you eat too much edible or you smoke too much

and you go i'm going to be stuck i'm going'm gonna be high forever i'm gonna be highly i'm never coming back that's emotions are like that yeah where you're so angry or sad or whatever that you're like i'm angry forever now and then four hours later you're like oh that was that was weird yeah also you know, the situations where you're so incredibly angry and you think you're right. Mm-hmm. And then a day later you find out maybe you're only half right. Mm-hmm. But it definitely didn't merit all your anger missiles. Mm-mm.

You didn't need to bring them out of the silo. Well, they're spent. Call them back. Yeah. What's the name of the the show cray cray got it and it's going to be on amazon audible audible on amazon audible in august yep great daryl hammond i dude i hope you enjoy this because this was excellent to me it was damn good all right all right All right. All right.