Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler - Larry King Will Be at Both of Our Funerals with Natasha Lyonne

Episode Date: July 20, 2019

Chelsea is joined live in New York by Natasha Lyonne where they discuss their funerals, not wanting children and growing up fast.Credits:Host: Chelsea HandlerGuest: Jake TapperExecutive Producer: Conal Byrne Producers: Sophie Lichterman, Jack O’Brien Writers: Jamie Loftus, Anna Hossnieh & Sophie Lichterman  Consulting Producers: Nick Stumpf, Miles Gray, & Anna HossniehEngineer: Billy KleinThis episode was Mixed & Edited by: Danl Goodman Music by: KingsburyOrder: "Life Will Be the Death of Me"Available in stores and online now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell. Connection is everything. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the Death of Me, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back in studio, Chelsea. Oh, well, thank you, Brandon.

Thank you for having me back in studio. You're very welcome. It's just nice when I get to see you because you've been out on tour so much. I like this touring schedule. It's great. Like I did St. Louis on Friday, which was so much fun. And then Saturday was Minneapolis, two nights a week, like on the weekends. I can get down with this kind of schedule.

You're really into the Midwest towns lately. I do because they're so grateful. They keep thanking you for coming. They just say, thank you so much for coming. I saw that you even did, like, you went through the arch. You did some touristy stuff while you were there. Yeah, it was humid, though. I had to come back from that walk and change my underwear.

You could only be outside for about 30 minutes when you're in St. Louis. And I know because that's where I'm from. It was. Oh, that's right, Brandon. You know what? I never even put two and two together. That's how self-absorbed I am. I forgot that you're from St. Louis.

I always think of you as a North Dakotan. South Dakotan. Oh, well, there you go. Doesn't really matter. That's called a double whoopsie doodle. What does matter is this episode with Natasha Lyonne. Oh, yes. I was very excited. Very sad that I didn't get to go, but excited to hear it.

Well, Natasha and I did two shows in New York on the same night, so enjoy. We'll be back after the break. Before I get started and bring out my friend, this is a pretty serious chapter. It's called Marijuana Keeps Families Together. Some people are not built for drugs and alcohol. I believe that I am. i believe that i am built for the apocalypse i reconnected with marijuana in my late 30s as i previously shared i'm open to most drugs as long as they don't leave you with a hole in your arm or staring through a keyhole of an apartment door looking out for drones at this stage of my life i

find it prudent to avoid apartments altogether i loved pot when i first discovered it in high school or pretended i did because it made me look i thought it made me look cool but after a few years of recreational abuse, it just ended up leaving me paranoid and self-conscious. And in one instance, getting up to leave the theater when a movie ended, only to realize I was on an airplane. Then one year, my family and I were on our annual Christmas ski trip to Whistler, Canada. And our chef made, and that's relatable, right? Our chef made us special adult cookies Every night my brothers and sisters would line up in the kitchen on our way to dinner

And I would dole out a half a cookie to each of them And if any of my nieces and nephews stole any without me seeing, it was none of my business Our family thrived that year our family doesn't really fight because we're all so exhausted from our childhoods but it definitely marked the new beginning of a new era for the handler family the legalization of marijuana in california raised standards at dispensaries the educative component that was lacking for so many years was now available on all store-bought weed the labeling of strains, along with the labeling of THC versus CBD ratios, was all right there in black

and white. With the advent of medicinal-grade controlled microdosing, there aren't a lot of people I wouldn't recommend cannabis to. I've turned straight arrow people into people I can actually spend time with. I've gotten friends who have never done any drugs, friends who've had terrible experiences with edibles, my Mormon sister who's here tonight, people's parents. people's parents muslims and one nun to imbibe about 90 of the people i've introduced to marijuana are now frequent users i take a lot of pride in that i take a lot of pride in being an enabler or a term i'd like to coin a pharmacological intuitive one who instinctually knows the exact right dosage for each consumer

After Trump was elected, I came the closest I'd ever been to depressed. My anger rose to the surface rather than simmering just beneath it. I had something identifiable to be angry about. So instead of masking it, I treated it. That's when the news started to get fun. Kellyanne Conway stoned is a good time. It's right up there with Eddie Murphy raw. Same for Sarah Suckabee Sanders.

One day, Sarah Suckabee Sanders came out for her breast briefing with emerald green eye shadow shrouding one eye and zero eye shadow on the other eye. I was like, this is a whole new world. I'd find myself laughing when Chris Matthews would interrupt his guests while spitting all over them. And I started to see the news for what it really was. a 24-hour spin cycle filled with conjecture and speculation about whatever idiotic or racist comment Trump had tweeted that day. I realized that I had allowed this administration to rob me of one year of my life,

and I wasn't going to give them another. I needed a channel change. The thing that non-cannabis users fail to recognize is the way cannabis bends your frame of mind. It allows access to a recessed part of your brain that I particularly was deeply needing to engage. How to be less reactive, how to sand down the edges. Those were things I had been working on with my psychiatrist, Dan.

As a result, things became slightly more poetic. Less final, end of an empire. My sleep got better, my moods got better, even my dreams got better. I stopped watching the news on a loop, and I even started waking up laughing some mornings. pot politics and dan summed up 2018 for me the year i had to fall apart in order to come back together i was sitting in dan's office one monday morning telling him how passionate i had become about this new marijuana renaissance my opinions have always felt fully formed i told dan with pot

it feels like they are finally like unfurling. Every canvas is blank. Everyone is so much less annoying and everything is a little more tolerable when I'm a little bit stoned. And I said, I also don't feel compelled to talk as much. And with my voice, that's a fucking bonus. In what way is everyone so annoying? It was always funny to hear Dan repeat phrases I used or use the word annoying in a sentence. Annoying seemed like a word that expires after adolescence, like conceited. I like that I was finally rubbing off on Dan. The thing I'm realizing, Dan, I told him, leaning on one elbow but missing the arm of the chair and falling into my own lap, is that I'm the one that's annoying. I'm just now finding out that

this whole time I've been the annoying one. Dan stared straight at me and it was hard to discern his take on my new hobby. I went on. I used to think that something was wrong with every person in this world, and now I know I'm the one with the problem. Everyone seems so much more interesting, I explained to him. I don't think you should judge yourself so harshly, Dan said. This was a phrase Dan repeated to me frequently, and one I've never quite gotten on board with. I do, I told him. I feel like that's what's been missing this whole time, circling around other people in order to avoid myself. I deserve to be on the receiving end of my own judgment. It's my comeuppance. And it's like this little porthole into a whole new world has opened up. When I'm stoned,

I can find joy in shaving my legs. This was when I realized I was stoned. I had popped a chocolate covered Kiva blueberry on my way out the door that morning. I don't usually take them in the morning, but I had therapy and thought, fuck it. That's my favorite thing about edibles. forgetting you've taken any and then you feel this little psychological twinkle and suddenly things get just a wee bit more dynamic we'd lit up my curiosity in things I hadn't been interested in for years

that's what I was missing getting lost in life a little bit more Dan told me that if I could access that state of mind when I was high it was already part of my psyche which meant that I could access it without anything at all or through meditation I'm not there yet, I told him I'm going to stick with the weed right now

I'd been trying for months to meditate And it was going nowhere fast I could only do forced meditation when I was with Dan He made me short recordings of meditations And long recordings of meditations And I'd try to do it for a few days at home And then I'd forget, or I'd remember and then forget Not only is it easier for me to be around other people, I told him

It's definitely easier for people to be around me I'm able to have conversations with people I never had the patience to listen to before I'm so much less judgy Everything becomes a little bit softer, a little bit less apocalyptic No black and white, more middle, more pleasant Well, that's great, he said I don't have a problem with you taking edibles And I said, the other good news is it's cut my drinking in half

This was a sentence I thought would never come out of my mouth So I want to be very, very clear I have no intention now, or in any future, of giving up alcohol. Thank you for your support. Okay, this is not a book where I get sober at the end. However, cutting my drinking in half was an unexpected perk, and that is when I started to get serious about cannabis. i've been approached by various weed companies to start my own line of cannabis products but i

didn't want to jump on the bandwagon until i had done due diligence and fully investigated what was available on the market this meant that it became my job to know everything about every available oil weed candy bath salt herb and food item that contained cannabis i was sitting around my house in los angeles one weekend with my brother glenn and my sister shauna who are in the audience tonight, doling out the new edibles that I wanted them to try. Chelsea, Glenn asked me, dripping in sarcasm, would you consider yourself a medical practitioner? No, I think of myself as more of a pharmacological intuitive, I said, testing out the term in everyday usage. I have a history of helping people, Glenn, yourself included. So why don't you shut the

fuck up and take this edible. Glenn and I both suffer from psoriasis on our skin, but only one of us had clear skin until I shared with Glenn the prescription that had knocked it out of my system. Two doxycycline, twice a day, 10 days, never on an empty stomach. I gave the very same prescription to my hairstylist when she had a terrible bout of acne. Twice a day, 10 days, never on an empty stomach. Glenn no longer has psoriasis and my hairstylist no longer has acne. And there are several African villagers who now have the cure to malaria. My sister Simone is required to give formal presentations at work, which makes her nervous. Her anxiety causes dry mouth, so I gave her a bottle of propranolol, which is a beta blocker that cuts off the signal from your

neurotransmitters that tells your brain it's anxious. Thank God we have a doctor in the family, Simone said after a second promotion. My area of expertise isn't only limited to cannabis and pharmaceuticals. I have had 100% success rate helping many women, friends who prior to my intervention hadn't gotten number two in years, become regular. Women in particular struggle with regularity, so it is important to have bowel movement advocates out there. There are over-the-counter There are calcium-magnesium pills called MAG-07 from Aerobic Life, and if you start with four each night, typically by day three you will start to have regular bowel movements. They do not pay me.

This is a public service announcement. At that point, once you start going regularly, I usually advise patients to reduce their intake to three pills in order to avoid morning diarrhea. Breast inflammation before your period? Rose hips. Once a day for a month. My cousin Molly told me that one. Hangovers to Excedrin, and the headache will be gone in less than 10 minutes.

Caffeine is the antidote to headaches caused by alcohol, and Excedrin contains caffeine. I would like them to pay me to promote them, because that's something I would do. If you've been drinking milk, this'll help if you take it before you go to bed, but it's hard to remember to take something when you're shit-faced. All in all, my point is, I've had an incredible track record with curing people, and the only mistakes I make are usually with myself. like the time I swallowed a yeast infection pill that was supposed to be administered vaginally.

After speaking with my doctor on the phone, I waited expectantly in the 48 hours that followed for a loaf of bread to pop out of my mouth. I know if people have the personality for Xanax or if they will do better on a lighter sleeping pill like Sonata, generic brand is Aleplon. I also know that Xanax isn't a sleeping pill, but that's what I used it for.

Adderall is good for some people, but too much for certain personality types. High-energy people like me do not need Adderall, no matter how tired you are, unless you want to wake up in the middle of the night cracking your fucking knuckles. But if you do like Adderall, what's even better is Provigil or NuVigil.

That's what people in the government and the military use when they travel through different time zones. ProVigil is the best thing I've ever taken for jet lag, or if I really need to focus on something. But again, if you have a knuckle-cracking problem, which everyone in my family has, just start with a half. There's nothing I love more than hopping on an international flight, popping a Xanax, and sleeping for 12 hours straight. But I've become so disgusted with the pharmaceutical industry in this country that I have redirected that passion and dedication

into the healthier alternative, cannabis. Chelsea, Glenn said, putting his fork down, you should be a late-stage companion. That's something you could do. You're fun. Something activity-based so you can, you know, be moving. Somewhere by the mountains or a pool. Older men seem to be drawn to you You'd get hired all the time

Who's in the late stage, I asked him Me or the companion? The companion, Shauna said Always the companion You have a lot in common with older people He's got a good idea Then my brother said This can be the perfect foil for your identity crisis, Chelsea

Since you can no longer date older guys This is a way you can still hang out with them all the time The reason I can't date older guys Is because now they're too fucking old I'm 44 So I got to lower the margin and get in my own age group, which is tough. Glenn wiped his mouth and took a sip of Mike's Hard Lemonade, which he had brought to my house. Glenn and I are a lot alike.

We find something we like, and then we abuse it for two months, and then we're on to the next thing. Glenn was having a Mike's Heart lemonade renaissance, and although I was repulsed, I understood it. Chelsea Glenn said, in your professional opinion, what procedure do you think Donald Trump is getting to make his face look like it does? What do you mean, I asked?

I don't think he's actually getting work done to look that bad. I mean, what he should be doing is resurfacing the texture of his skin and at the very least getting the fat sucked out from underneath his eyes and maybe lipo, but he obviously can't even see clearly if he thinks that's what he's presenting is even presentable.

I mean, obviously we're not going to get through to this guy. His ass is the size of my dog Bert's. So I think that should be the first thing on his to-do list. You don't think he's doing stuff to his mouth, Glenn asked. He was being serious, so I looked up. Like, what? Is there some sort of surgical procedure or face treatment that makes your mouth look more like an anus?

I had to think about that when my brother asked me that question. I don't know anything about a procedure to make your mouth smaller. Or a face treatment that makes your mouth look more like an anus, or anus-like. I'm not sure what the vernacular is here. He may think it looks good, Chelsea Glenn reminded me. It's as if his mouth keeps getting tighter and tighter and smaller and smaller. I liked the idea of Donald Trump sewing his mouth closed one surgical procedure at a time. this country's had a rough year glenside men have had a rough year shawna said and you

fucking deserve it it sounds like i said you only have yourselves to blame it's a rap on old white men well not all old white men just a bunch of them yeah shawna said walking back to the table with a frozen ham in her hands she wanted to know if i was saving the ham for a special occasion occasion. She was definitely stoned if she wanted to cook a ham, so I redirected my attention back to the only male in the room. Let me tell you a little story about men, Glenn, okay? Every week I go to the nail salon where I get a massage on my forearms after my manicure, and that is the closest I have ever in my life come to understand what it feels like to get a hand job. I want a climax in that salon. I want to let loose and just let them rub me and just

let it rip i want that but i don't do it because i'm not a fucking pig that's the difference between men and women we are more prone to controlling ourselves yes glenn agreed most women are but i would place you in the category of people who have trouble controlling themselves it's a very good thing you weren't born with male genitalia i can guarantee that if i were you would still never meet find me jerking off into a fucking plant who did that he asked i don't know one of these guys louis ck or harvey weinstein one of them jerked off into a plant i mean seriously when does it come to that i'm stoned high drunk and stoned shauna said with a frozen ham tucked into her armpit

You're not drunk, I reassured her and guided her upstairs to my bathroom where I placed the frozen ham on the floor of the infrared sauna and told Shauna it would be ready first thing in the morning. Is that thing even on, she asked. Yes, I told her as I guided her to my bed. How do you feel, I said as we climbed into bed. Super warm and fuzzy, she told me.

I got out my medical journal and I made a note of her condition. Are you hungry? I asked her. I had been working tirelessly on isolating the right strain of marijuana that doesn't give you the munchies. I'm not hungry, she said. The ham just reminded me of something Mom would have made us at Christmas. I said, oh, do you feel sad? Took out my medical notebook again.

No, just warm and fuzzy. We lay in my bed, holding hands, looking out at the backyard, lit by the lanterns, hanging into my trees. I felt grateful in that moment that I was lying next to my sister, and for all the gifts that life had given me, and for all the girls life had given me. I just want everything to go on forever, I told Shauna,

and then I stuck my finger in her butt. When are we gonna be too old to act like this, she asked me, giggling. We'll never be too old to act like this, I told her. Then she yawned and said, just because I get colonics doesn't mean you can treat me like shit. And then she rolled over and fell asleep. Thank you.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back. get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details and to check availability bell connection is everything when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt

he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every

week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm gonna have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.

I'm very grateful to my friend who I've known for many years and she's always been somebody that I've watched because you could watch her for hours and she just had a very, very successful run with her new show Russian Doll which I know everybody knows about so please welcome Natasha Lyonne I mean business

business attire Thank you for dressing so professionally. You know, the tables have turned, Chelsea. And so this is going to be my big Larry King come-out party, is how I see it. And I want to watch you individually peel each one of these oranges. And we're going to be here for seven hours. The book is great.

I've read the book. Thank you for reading the book. And I've come prepared. I'm going to put these on even though I'm actually nearsighted but I'm looking forward to becoming farsighted because then you can do this move which I think always makes people seem

smart and old and then you can kind of do this but I just want to remind you I can see perfectly at this distance it's up there I would need it for so you know I've prepared some flashcards and I've told you about the Rotunda which is a game

we're going to be playing later okay so uh chelsea i'm saying it right yeah no it's it's tracy oh it's a tracy but spelled with a ch yes that's interesting and a y and an apostrophe at the end yeah i'm not surprised though because i've heard a lot about your childhood this is it's uh it's hard having a childhood isn't it it's hard it's hard it's hard spending your adulthood getting over your childhood for sure now this is my sort of big beef with therapy uh this is not on the flashcards um but i'm like jesus what do you want from me like my entire life is gonna be unpacking this fucking you know 10-year event what a bummer why is this my problem i didn't do it yeah do you know what i

mean i know what you mean are you talking about the 10 years being your childhood yes oh so well you had a short childhood so yeah so that's even easier to get over i guess i guess like that yeah by 11 you know what i mean your workforce and uh fax machines that's where they have you know fax machines you had to grow up very quick you were you were on tv and stuff and yes but also running an office an office supply chain store which i it's you know more common people talk about oh you're a child actor nobody talks about my time at staples as a kid yeah no i didn't know about staples thank you it's not as glamorous but it was important to me and that's where i first fell in love with paper clips so i'm gonna remove this one in honor uh okay let me have a

Tracy, now, do you really have $250,000 set aside for your funeral? I mean, that's big money, right? I set $250,000 aside for my funeral a long time ago just because I wanted to have a great funeral and I wanted to make sure it was done well. And I wanted it to be a celebration. And I took it seriously because so many people don't think about that. And I thought if I died tragically, which is a possibility,

I want to be prepared and I don't want to stress out my family and I want to invite all the people that loved me and all the people who didn't I want everyone to go to this party I want little people, I want mushrooms I want little people on mushrooms I just want a big blowout but now that I've become a little bit more awakened

or I don't know, that word sounds still I have trouble with that word a little bit even though that's kind of how I feel I feel like that money should probably go to the NAACP or something instead of having another blowout party. Just a thought. Or both is an idea. Or I have my party at the NAACP.

Time allowing. And, you know, are you opposed to throwing some of that cash my way? Maybe a joint funeral? We could have a joint funeral. That would be fun. I mean, yeah, I don't see why people are doing that more often. Okay, so how does that work? We have to coordinate our deaths.

That's what I'm thinking. Now, or with a kind gesture, therapeutically speaking, an empathetic gesture. Yes. Whoever dies first, the other person waits and holds the funeral. However long. Yeah. You know, five, ten, fifteen years or minutes. Right?

Right. That seems fair. Yeah. Okay, ideas. Ideas. You know who else did that? So if I die first, you plan my funeral? And then do you get, where's the money?

With your money. Okay. So what's most important here is the money, and I think we shouldn't lose sight of that. You know who else did that? The late, great Nora Ephron. Did she? Well, I don't know how much she spent or how much money she put aside,

but she had a file going her whole life, and it was like, it's got a great name. It's sort of like the final movie or something. Final, yeah, the sunset. Final movie. The final sunset. I feel like it was probably better than that, right? The last movie, which is actually maybe a Dennis Hopper,

sort of a Terry Southern movie, but we won't get into that. Well, this we've covered It's a series of additional funeral questions DJs, destination funerals, and so on Do you have a DJ you'd like to use at your wedding? I mean funeral I actually am planning a wedding funeral

So it's not even, you know, a Freudian slip So that's when I'm getting married On my deathbed It's going to be very romantic And there will be a DJ, yes It's important to know Is there anyone besides Donald Trump Who I don't care to insult

Clearly That you don't want At my funeral? At your funeral, yes Like if you would like to name names of some other people That are on your hit list But you don't have to And I won't murder them

I would not I'm not actually like a soprano I just talk tough and it's an important distinction but if there's anybody that you don't want at your funeral, you know what I'm saying you just let me know and I'll make sure they're not at your funeral, okay?

Aren't you pissed that you weren't on The Sopranos? I'm at all times pissed that I'm like, where's my mafia picture? Because I'm so, so ready I don't know, I don't hate anybody that much I don't care about hating people as much as I used to so I'm trying out a new philosophy where even if someone doesn't like me, I like them.

Yeah. And that's a fun game to play. That is truly enlightened. It's like, oh! That's truly, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying it out, and I like it. Do you think you're gonna die young? Sort of left field, huh?

It's just, ah, slipping it in. It's just the tip. We're okay. You can't get pregnant from just the tip. We all know that. Tell your kids. That's right. Yeah.

That's correct, everybody. Do you think so? No. You don't? No, no. You can get pregnant from the tip. Yeah. Were you pregnant at 16?

I was pregnant a couple times at 16, yeah. More than once? More than once, yeah. Same guy, different? Yeah. I had a black boyfriend in high school. His name was Tyshawn. He's actually in my new documentary that's coming out about white privilege.

My own, specifically. and I always thought like I always thought white privilege meant you know you were from like a family like you had trust funds and you were from the Rockefeller family and you went to Harvard like I identified white privilege like that and it wasn't until after the election that I really just started to think about my own privilege in a way that I hadn't noted like hadn't understood before I and I was embarrassed because of all the success I've had and how easily it came to me yeah I worked hard and we all work hard, but it was, I got rewarded for a lot of bad behavior and that wouldn't have happened to somebody who didn't look like me. So, so I went and revisited Tyshawn

for this documentary because we got arrested three times while we were together. For what? I didn't get arrested. He got arrested for a dime bag of pot. He got, every time he got caught, I was, oh, not every time, who knows how many other times, but the three times I was with him each time the police officer said okay miss you get out of this neighborhood and go home and and he was arrested so he had a full scholarship to UNLV university to play basketball and he was not able to go because of those three infractions which were stupid but I mean a white person gets away with that I got away with it and he then spent 14 years incarcerated and his whole life was ruined and so I saw him in the documentary I read like we visit his family and get his story

and hear about it because I just walked out of his world and was like, okay, I'm done with this phase of my life. I'm done. I'm done with my black phase. I'm going to go back to my family, you know, and I just left and I could. And I never thought about that until the election. I didn't think about a lot of things until the election. You know, I thought, oh, we elected Barack Obama. Great. Racism is over. And I thought we were going to elect Hillary Clinton. And I thought, great. Feminism is, that's a fight we don't have to do much of anymore. So when those two things backfired I woke up

and I started to look around and ask the questions and I was embarrassed that it took me this long to get here but I'm happy to be late to the party than to never show up at all and and I think that we all have to wake up

the world's only getting browner and gayer so you better fucking hop on board before you miss the bus indeed yeah I think about that I think about a lot especially because the prison show I'm on I'm not making it about me

but you know it's early on, I think I would really identify, I was like, oh yeah, I know how to be on this show, because I've spent time in various holding cells, and you know what I mean?

Did you get arrested a lot in your real life? You know, more than once. Less than more. Times ten. Less. Expunged. So, cut to the end of the story.

without details. You know, I too spend a great deal of time, you know, thinking about this. You know, it's like, you know, people say, and we went on this documentary, we went to the South and, you know, all the places where you find races, which are everywhere in every city.

And, you know, it ended up being in my own backyard. L.A. is the most segregated city in the world. I live in Bel-Air. Like, who am I, what am I thinking that I'm diverse? I live in the whitest place in the country. I mean, I don't know if there's a whiter place. Maybe Winter Park. I'm also something very Jewish.

What? bel-air oh well i'm not hanging out with the jews but yeah it's very jewish and very white but you know you don't look around you don't think about that when i was doing this documentary and people were asking me about that i was like oh yeah i went to santa monica from new jersey where i had one black kid in my school and then i moved to santa monica and then brentwood and then i moved to bel-air so you know you think you you know what privilege is or you know what you're who you're surrounding yourself with or i'm not guilty of that i'm not guilty of that we're all a little bit guilty of not being better allies and advocates to people of color we're all a little bit we can

all do better and so that's a big you know that's a good thing to know when you're moving forward in something in your life and my work especially that needs to be you know front and center because i've been here because i've been spoiled and i realize well yeah because you know uh Strong agree, Chelsea, strong agree. But genuinely, and yeah, I hate it all. I hate tokenism. I hate the more subtle forms of white supremacy that we see. I hate seeing it in movies.

I fucking hate it. So well done. Okay, well, this sounds like a good time to take a break. get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details and to check availability bell connection is everything when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files

i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part

book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm gonna have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much you're in the right place listen to pro

society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts see you between the pages What is the most interesting place that you have traveled to? Africa. I mean, Africa really feels like you're on another planet. You get there and you're like, holy shit. There's fucking giraffes and elephants. Iceland, too.

I've been... Yeah. Is what? Well, it feels very much like another planet on a very space... Yeah, Iceland feels more like Game of Thrones. Yeah. Right? I love that show.

They have shark on the menu and whale. I'm like, I don't think so, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Food is bad in Iceland. Where in Africa have you been? Been on safari like three times, and I've been to Botswana, South Africa, I think both times.

Yeah, I went back to South Africa on the last time. I think that was one of those trips where you just can't, you can't believe what you're looking at. You're just like, oh, my God. And you just go on, I mean, you could watch a lion for 10 hours straight. I'm not, I love my dogs, but I'm not like this animal activist. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to hurt an animal, but, like, I'm not going nuts about it.

Would you define yourself as a hunter? JK. So, I just got back. I was in Nigeria. I was in Ghana. Fucking great. Really. How was Ghana?

What went down there? So, first of all, aesthetically speaking, with a filmmaker's eye which is what I have, ladies and gentlemen it is so fucking good looking because it's just like sort of, it's very like

60s, sort of low buildings it almost has a, kind of a Cuba vibe, it's very very gorgeous, it's like a European city and we went to the Kwame Museum, which is so good looking

and then in Accra we went to the slave castles and this is a very very heavy journey to go down and really understand

in ways you're talking about the weight of the world that we're actually living in, you know they have this museum there and you kind of see all the heavy weights are there it's Marcus Garvey and uh you know Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and and you see the way in which uh America the world at large time and time again just fucking shut it

down and uh it's harrowing and to understand that uh you know it's almost uh feels like there's the idea of the ongoing crime that is our current prison system um is is very uh tough to take Who did you take that trip with? I went with Uzo Aduba from Orange is the New Black. I know you were with Laura Prepon last night, and then you said Taylor last week. I've been having a renaissance of Orange is the New Black. Yeah, and as have I constantly,

but it's less a renaissance, it's more of an existence, let's say. You're also on the show, so you don't have to be there. And so we went, and Uzo's Nigerian, so we went to Lagos, it was great. There's so much great art happening. There's a thriving filmmaking scene out there. And we also did some Global Citizen stuff that she's involved in. But yeah, like this Ghana and the slave castles and coming back to America, landing at JFK and going like, you know, getting your sort of Hamilton bills out of the fucking ATM machine.

You're like, what is this fucking scumbag? um it's very uh you know crystallizing and also just gorgeous but then also like oh that's right that's why they called it the ivory coast of the gold coast it's it's very it's a heavy that's an important trip to take yeah sounds like it yeah yeah uh i mean i think when you are opened up to all these things you know and part of like the last couple of years for me it's like once you're awake to everything that's going on around you first of all it's an opportunity to be more grounded and to be more still and to actually pay attention instead of filling up for me my issue is filling everything up with noise you know i if anything's too serious i'll

make the joke if somebody stops talking i'll start you know and that kind of cycle and that perpetual motion which is kinetic motion which really never allows you to look around there's too many you know there are too many important trips and and moments like that that you have to really not only just be there for and be aware of in the moment but after the fact to reflect upon what you've learned and to see what you can do as a human being to make a contribution that's going to be valuable so i'm all for taking those trips multiple times you know well and i love that early in the book uh you reference one of my favorite books of all time the only book i walked into the russian doll writer's room with which is victor frankl's man's search for meaning um

but i mean what a great what a great book and uh what a great source material for writing comedy there was a there was there was a line in the book that i referenced in my book and in victor frankl's book called demand search for meaning that when i read it it made me like look up at the sky and think whoa what the fuck am i doing with my life and it was stop asking what you expect out of life and start asking what life expects out of you and i was like oh i i had to read that to think it you know i was like how lost am i if i've never even thought about what anyone's expecting out of me i was thinking about what i'm gonna get yeah you know like take take which i think is fair and normal and kind of like happens for each of us in its right time right like the

truth is is you know there's even an underlying sort of lucky stroke to having the opportunity to kind of investigate self you know i think yeah that's privilege going to a psychiatrist for years yeah but you know when it is um i hand to mouth existence i think it's harder to really take this time but you know but but for victor frankl for for context of course he's a i think an Auschwitz survivor through the Holocaust, and he then sort of got out of there alive and had to rethink his life in terms of how do I sort of string a life back together after what I just saw and what human beings are capable of, and he came up with a system called logotherapy that was this idea of trying to sort of, you know, that man is doomed to a sort of existential morass of

endless horror internally unless they can kind of pinpoint this thing which is great and important now you sent your dogs Bert and Bernice oh

my two big fat fucks I have a dog now that is so fat it's like if you could turn Chewy into a dog that's what I would have turned him into his body has all these different pockets of meat just when you think there's no more fat left there's something under his thigh you know and he's one of those dogs i had to shave when i got

him because i had to see what i was dealing with i was like let's get down to business with this body and i was very excited about what i found yeah that's how i felt when i met divine um you know what i'm talking about yeah i do i don't have a child but i imagine that if i did and there was a nanny uh i would i would resent the nanny and i would say i'm your mother i truly believe wait I want you to, please. Because I think it's very important for women, all women, now that women are thinking about having children instead of just having them,

that it's good to say to people about why you don't want to have them. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you. I'll give you a whole list. Yeah. No, for me, I actually think that children should be the great anomaly.

It should be this kind of, like, shocking, radical, like, holy fuck. did you hear that ben had a kid what the fuck this oh my god yes with the ben and tina they made up good for them what a bunch of freaks like they i mean they really must want to do this thing instead i think we have this bizarre epidemic happening where uh everybody's like hell-bent on uh oh congratulations you know you're over 25 where's uh so where's this partner oh good you found this partner now you when's the marriage oh good now you got where's the baby it's like what and then you see the statistics it's like where's the divorce you know what i mean

and where's the children that are like you know out there being like uh can somebody look out for me uh because i'm a fucking person and you have all these sort of unqualified i i just think for the sake of the children and nobody loves children more than the sake of the children don't have them is what you're saying i think you know i think that some people should totally like i have some friends and i'm like holy shit your fucking destiny was to be a mother you should clearly be procreating do you know what i mean like it was so much a fabric of their lifeblood and then i see you know sometimes other people who are just sort of like lost or more relevant to the the moment that we're in which is this nightmare of kind of uh you know um men dictating when or

when not women should be allowed to have uh their own sort of personal freedoms and existence in this life so that i uh find wildly problematic of course um you know i think it should be a very choice with great intent and not a series of like accidents in an effort to be like maybe we should break up or have a kid like i think that that's fucking weird and i think people do that all the time or people get pregnant they're like my girlfriend was like oh she was 40 and she's like, I'm pregnant, I guess I have to have it now and I'm like, why? and she's like, because I'm 40, how can I get an abortion at 40?

I'm like, it's better than being a bad parent so go get one, what do you mean? like, if you don't want the baby, don't have a baby if you don't want desperately to have a baby I mean, that's the thing, it's like I want them to have kids when they really fucking want it but like, it's a big, it's not a pair of shoes

you know what I'm saying? it's not like, eh, change my mind and I can't walk in them it's like, what the fuck are you doing? and Delia I remember once said to me I was like yeah and you know I got this boyfriend I'm on the show and I think I want to start a production company I want to be a director I think I'm gonna like write stuff and and I was like but fuck Delia do you think I should like make embryos or what should I do because like I got to figure that out and she was like whoa you know she was like not everybody has to do everything you know um that there's this kind of hang up around for

women that there's almost like this additional burden of okay I've got xyz kind of dream and also I'm gonna take on this other full-time job which is to do this thing and just the idea of like I don't know maybe someday I will sort of decide to have a kid in some variation adoptic I don't know what the future holds but this idea that it was this burden on my 30s of a decision that had to be made when, meantime, you know, I had a boyfriend in his 40s who was not stressing about it at all. Felt like a very unfair albatross to be carrying around.

So I think, in general, I just sort of let go of it and sort of felt like this is something that will sort of be a moral be revealed and it can kind of, you know, let that child find me. Good luck. Find me. You can adopt kids in different countries now, too, you know? You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of fucking ways to... And you can be involved. Like, I like to do that.

It's better that I'm not present with the kid. It's better that I'm just paying for things, you know? I know what my strengths and weaknesses are. But you feel concretely like you're like, no babies for this baby? No, no, I don't want, I'm not interested in that at all. It's never been of interest to me. I come from a big family, and I thought if I was going to have one kid, I'd want six, just like I grew up with.

And no, I just know it's not a good use of my time. I'm better without that. I have come to grips with the fact that it's okay to say I want to be in a relationship. Like, that's my mature, that's my thing. Like, oh, I worked so hard for so long trying to be so independent and so fierce and so tough, and I didn't know that that had a direct correlation to my childhood, to the fact that my brother died when I was nine years old and looked me in the eye and said, I'll be back, don't worry, I'll never leave you with these people, and died.

so my feeling about relying on another person from a very young age I didn't give it enough credit because I was nine I didn't know anything it may seem obvious discussing it or looking at someone else's story and going obviously that's why she's fucked up but it's when you're in it you don't know it and I let it rip in a way that I had never been able to do in my entire life I was never able to tell somebody that I was in pain I couldn't be in pain because I was too strong to be in pain. And for someone like me, you know, when you get, you know, you don't think you have a right to complain. You have access to anything you need. You're successful. I have a TV show in my name. I have books in my name. I didn't think I had a right to be in pain. And I didn't think

I had a right to complain. And what I learned by going and stopping my work and doing everything I can to get myself into a healthy place, that you are of no use to anyone until you're fucking healthy. And that's when you're like, oh, oh, I can be a good friend now. I can look out for empathy now. I can get my shit together now. And all the patterns of behavior that are from that period in time, period of time in your life, you know, the scorching earth. If somebody pisses me off, I'm like, they're out, they're out. Like I had this pattern of, of ruining friendships or ending friendships on a dime. And when I told Dan about that, I said, you know, I don't know why I do this. I can't forgive anybody. And he said, because this is your blueprint of how a

relationship ends. Your brother told you he was coming back and he left. So he was alive one day and he was gone tomorrow. That's what you think. That's how you think relationships end. And I was like, holy shit, that is what I'm doing. That is what I'm doing. I'm just, that's my blueprint. That's how I think. So Dan was able to show me a blueprint, like about patience, about going into an airport and paying for things in a normal way not shoplifting and giving them the money under the table or whatever about making eye contact with every stranger that talks to me or you know that I see and not rushing through life and and not taking a shortcut through your grief because the only way through it is fucking through it and there's no hopscotching around it and there's no

way to get around it so for me it was so so strengthening to have a man sit across from me that I could cry in front of a and you know and then I got really good at crying I was like oh I was just crying all the time and I was writing this book and I was in airports crying just in public and people would come over and be like are you okay I'm like my brother died I'm writing a book fuck leave me alone yes I'm gonna be okay and the catharsis that came along with it was just I had to share it because I'm a different person and I feel my friends like this is like an apology tour I'm like no no but I feel like you know so vibrant in a way that I hadn't for so long and taking that talk about an albatross around your neck taking something that you've had an injury

for that that you've had for so long and being able to release it and not be mad at my brother for dying he goes you're mad you're you were rejected he goes you felt rejected and I said yeah, but he died. It was an accident. He goes, but not to your nine-year-old brain. Your nine-year-old brain interprets that as somebody being bored with you or leaving you or choosing another family because they have a sister, a little sister that's cuter or more fun to be around. So it was a big lesson and it was a big, you know, it was a big moment for me to write since I've made a career of oversharing so many things. I thought, why not overshare something positive and good? So To circle back to the baby component of it,

at the end of it, I was like, because everything comes back to my brother Chet, you know, in therapy, whenever we talk, I'd be like, this guy's shoes, I can't date him, the fucking shoes. And I said about the baby, I go, am I, is this all, what about the baby thing? And he's like, no, I genuinely think

you don't like children, so. So once I got his stamp of approval, I was like, all right, I'm on my way out. That probably seemed like such a relief, huh? To get like an official authority. Yeah, I was like, shit, if I have to get pregnant now, too i'm gonna be so bummed 44 and pregnant we have to wrap up but i'm gonna read a little thing these bracelets they're selling out front there i decide bracelets and they sell t-shirts too

because there's something i want to read from the book uh that this organization one of these a guy that read this book wrote me and and said that this meant a lot to him because he had somebody in his family that died. And so we made these T-shirts in his honor. And all the proceeds go to LGBTQIA and all the proceeds

from the bracelets. But I'm going to get up to read this. Sorry if I have camel toe. I didn't know then that my brother's death was defining me. I didn't know

that I had the ability to say no to being defined by death. Now I was with a person, Dan, who could help me process what happened and turn the parts of me that acted like a nine-year-old into a self-actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of what it means to dig deep and admit that you are in pain, thereby beginning the process of relinquishing that pain. I was in a place where my brother dying no longer had to define my existence.

It is part of who I am, perhaps the biggest part, and it may have helped steer me in a certain direction, but it is not all of me. I define me no event or person does this I define me I decide who I am and I decide how I'm going to behave and I choose to do better to look more carefully to trudge deeper to think about other people's pasts and not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than I would to understand my limitations and my shortcomings that is my growth edge I decide to be better we all can be better thank you guys

thank you New York City for coming out and thank you to Natasha Lyonne for your very professional interview did you enjoy that episode

Brandon I did you're not going to like all the compliments but I like that the tour has been a mix of like social issues and comedy

yeah and while listeners are listening I mean you know we're trying to have as little repetition as possible

which is hard because we're covering the same topics but we're managing to do it so thank you for bearing with us on that front if you hear like a theme or a topic more than once you know suck on it speaking of social issues there are a couple of things that you might want people to check in on like your accountable yeah oh by the way i have accountable page which kind of puts up articles of things that are happening and ways to kind of help or get involved

with causes that you care about um and i've joined i'm still partners with emily's list So if you follow me on Twitter, if you're looking for candidates, I'm always promoting Emily's List. You should follow Emily's List, too, because they always are looking for progressive women to run all across the country. And they keep you apprised of all the exciting women that come into the field and people who run for the very first time, you know, to people who've ran before. Anyway, so Emily's List is good. I have a countable page. And I'm coming to Nashville and New Orleans. Nashville Friday night and New Orleans Saturday night.

And I'll be at those shows. And you can get your tickets at LiveNation.com. And then I'm coming to Australia in October. And New Zealand. I'm coming to Auckland, New Zealand, October 9th. And I will be adding more dates. Canadian dates are coming. I just am trying to get my schedule.

And, yeah. Thank you guys for listening. And, Brandon, thank you for being so... Oh, God. What is the word? We'll find it. Don't worry about it. Next week.

Thank you. Tune in next week when we find out the word to describe Brandon. Life Will Be the Death of Me is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture

with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you hear the new episode of the Hey Jonas podcast? We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by. The cast of Frozen stopped by. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Idina Menzel. I auditioned for Frozen.

What? For Kristoff. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know. That must have been why you didn't get it. Oh, you probably won. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars, and more. And I guess I can share that, uh...

No way. Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.